4 ms·

I mean, we were there before this Cowork feature started exposing more users to the slot machine: "Claude CLI deleted my home directory and wiped my Mac" https

I mean, we were there before this Cowork feature started exposing more users to the slot machine: "Claude CLI deleted my home directory and wiped my Mac" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46268222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46268222 "Vibe coding service Replit deleted production database, faked data, told fibs" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44632575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44632575 "Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of whole drive" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46103532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46103532

Workaccount2 10mo ago
That's what I am saying though. Anecdotes are the wrong thing to focus on, because if we just focused on anecdotes, we would all never leave our beds. People's choices are generally based on their personal experience, not really anecdotes online (although those can be totally crippling if you give in). Car crashes are incredibly common and likewise automotive deaths. But our personal experience keeps us driving everyday, regardless of the stories.
- yencabulator 10mo ago
  We as a society put a whole lot of effort into making cars safer. Seatbelts, ABS, airbags.. Claude Code should have airbags too!
  - TeMPOraL 10mo ago
    Airbags, yes. But you can't just make it provably impossible for a car to crash into something and hurt/kill its occupants, other than not building it in the first place. Same with LLMs - you can't secure them like regular programs without destroying any utility they provide, because their power comes from the very thing that also makes them vulnerable.
    - yencabulator 10mo ago
      I see you've given up. I haven't. LLM inside deterministic guardrails is a pretty good combo.
  - lossyalgo 10mo ago
    And yet in the US 40,000 people still die on average every year. Per-capita it's definitely improving, but it's still way worse than it could/should be.
    - yencabulator 10mo ago
      Yes, and a photo you put on your physical desktop will fade over time. Computers aren't like that, or at least we benefit greatly from them not being like that. If you tell your firewall to block traffic to port 80, you expect all such traffic to be blocked, not just the traffic that arrives in the moments when it wasn't distracted.

Workaccount2 10mo ago

That's what I am saying though. Anecdotes are the wrong thing to focus on, because if we just focused on anecdotes, we would all never leave our beds. People's choices are generally based on their personal experience, not really anecdotes online (although those can be totally crippling if you give in). Car crashes are incredibly common and likewise automotive deaths. But our personal experience keeps us driving everyday, regardless of the stories.

yencabulator 10mo ago
We as a society put a whole lot of effort into making cars safer. Seatbelts, ABS, airbags.. Claude Code should have airbags too!
- TeMPOraL 10mo ago
  Airbags, yes. But you can't just make it provably impossible for a car to crash into something and hurt/kill its occupants, other than not building it in the first place. Same with LLMs - you can't secure them like regular programs without destroying any utility they provide, because their power comes from the very thing that also makes them vulnerable.
  - yencabulator 10mo ago
    I see you've given up. I haven't. LLM inside deterministic guardrails is a pretty good combo.
- lossyalgo 10mo ago
  And yet in the US 40,000 people still die on average every year. Per-capita it's definitely improving, but it's still way worse than it could/should be.
  - yencabulator 10mo ago
    Yes, and a photo you put on your physical desktop will fade over time. Computers aren't like that, or at least we benefit greatly from them not being like that. If you tell your firewall to block traffic to port 80, you expect all such traffic to be blocked, not just the traffic that arrives in the moments when it wasn't distracted.