3 ms·

That’s a good point… you would think AGI would be better at being a copyright lawyer than any human would be and as such would be able to distinguish whether so

by hasteg 28d ago

That’s a good point… you would think AGI would be better at being a copyright lawyer than any human would be and as such would be able to distinguish whether something is “copyright infringement” or not… so the system prompt should just include “make judgement calls on reproducing copyrighted material under the full scope of the legal framework in place” or something.

Maxion 28d ago
The whole architecture of current LLMs just is not conductive to AGI, it's just marketing hype. In my opinion current LLMs aren't even AI, they're just fancy machine learning algorithms
- simonw 28d ago
  Do you want AGI? I don't. I want the tools we've got now, but progressively more effective and more useful.
  - GPerson 28d ago
    You don’t act like you don’t want AGI. You have a very strong track record of speaking out of both sides of your mouth in different settings.
    - simonw 28d ago
      I've been pretty consistent about my disinterest in AGI: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Agi%20author%3Asimonw&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... "You have a very strong track record of speaking out of both sides of your mouth in different settings." If I have a consistent record of that it should be very easy for you to come up with the some examples.
      - GPerson 28d ago
        Someone who is disinterested in AGI does not make a hard transition in their career into uncritically promoting the products of the only two companies which have stated their goal is to create AGI. One example of this contradiction appears above. Another appeared in a previous thread where you meekly pretended your pelican benchmark is evidence against the power of AI tools. It is obvious you don’t think this because you frequently describe these AI outputs as ‘lovely’ etc. A third appeared when you took a performative stance against AI engineers who do not understand or take responsibility for their software, while simultaneously representing yourself as a person who cannot believe this is a real problem. There are many many more.
        simonw 28d ago
        Uncritically?
        GPerson 28d ago
        Yes. Do you actually believe it is reasonable to take away from your blog posts a critical stance on AI?
        simonw 28d ago
        If your definition of "critical" is "this stuff is all bullshit and doesn't work" then no. If you're looking for coverage that talks about what doesn't work as well as things that do then I've been persistently providing that for four years now. Plus prompt injection, AI misuse, AI ethics... I consider all of those part of my "beat" in covering this industry. My post about Claude's latest system prompt (and how it was likely inspired by lawsuits filed against Anthropic) was on the homepage here just a few hours ago. Is that uncritical? https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/2/claudes-new-system-prompt/ https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/2/claudes-new-system-prom...
        GPerson 28d ago
        Interestingly I don’t think this stuff is all bullshit and doesn’t work, and haven’t at least since 2022. My angle is that AI is powerful and harmful. Your work is in support of making it more powerful and more harmful, and looks a lot like an effort to push us toward AGI, not away from it. Is a musket more or less harmful than a modern rifle, and for whom? Since we’re pulling random posts, was your blog post celebrating going out with your family while Claude wrote a large project for you an instance of your critical stance on AI capability? Have your many enthusiastic posts about increased AI capability shown a critical stance?
lampiaio 28d ago
The thing is, it currently doesn't matter if AGI objectively concludes that a particular thing is or isn't copyright infringement, because the human arbiter who holds the last word might still disagree.
- hasteg 28d ago
  Well I mean, based on what I said, if we truly did have “AGI” then the “AGI” would be able to argue it’s 100% correct point in court according to copyright law, no human intervention. Yes there is lawyers and judges who are making calls in court but allegedly it would be able to construct a concrete argument right? That would hold up in court. Without any buts or ands. Not disagreeing with you, I agree as of now it wouldn’t hold up. But a true “AGI” would be able to pander to anyone better than any PERSON could.

by hasteg 28d ago

Maxion 28d ago

The whole architecture of current LLMs just is not conductive to AGI, it's just marketing hype. In my opinion current LLMs aren't even AI, they're just fancy machine learning algorithms

simonw 28d ago
Do you want AGI? I don't. I want the tools we've got now, but progressively more effective and more useful.
- GPerson 28d ago
  You don’t act like you don’t want AGI. You have a very strong track record of speaking out of both sides of your mouth in different settings.
  - simonw 28d ago
    I've been pretty consistent about my disinterest in AGI: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Agi%20author%3Asimonw&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... "You have a very strong track record of speaking out of both sides of your mouth in different settings." If I have a consistent record of that it should be very easy for you to come up with the some examples.
    - GPerson 28d ago
      Someone who is disinterested in AGI does not make a hard transition in their career into uncritically promoting the products of the only two companies which have stated their goal is to create AGI. One example of this contradiction appears above. Another appeared in a previous thread where you meekly pretended your pelican benchmark is evidence against the power of AI tools. It is obvious you don’t think this because you frequently describe these AI outputs as ‘lovely’ etc. A third appeared when you took a performative stance against AI engineers who do not understand or take responsibility for their software, while simultaneously representing yourself as a person who cannot believe this is a real problem. There are many many more.
      - simonw 28d ago
        Uncritically?
        GPerson 28d ago
        Yes. Do you actually believe it is reasonable to take away from your blog posts a critical stance on AI?
        simonw 28d ago
        If your definition of "critical" is "this stuff is all bullshit and doesn't work" then no. If you're looking for coverage that talks about what doesn't work as well as things that do then I've been persistently providing that for four years now. Plus prompt injection, AI misuse, AI ethics... I consider all of those part of my "beat" in covering this industry. My post about Claude's latest system prompt (and how it was likely inspired by lawsuits filed against Anthropic) was on the homepage here just a few hours ago. Is that uncritical? https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/2/claudes-new-system-prompt/ https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/2/claudes-new-system-prom...
        GPerson 28d ago
        Interestingly I don’t think this stuff is all bullshit and doesn’t work, and haven’t at least since 2022. My angle is that AI is powerful and harmful. Your work is in support of making it more powerful and more harmful, and looks a lot like an effort to push us toward AGI, not away from it. Is a musket more or less harmful than a modern rifle, and for whom? Since we’re pulling random posts, was your blog post celebrating going out with your family while Claude wrote a large project for you an instance of your critical stance on AI capability? Have your many enthusiastic posts about increased AI capability shown a critical stance?

lampiaio 28d ago

The thing is, it currently doesn't matter if AGI objectively concludes that a particular thing is or isn't copyright infringement, because the human arbiter who holds the last word might still disagree.

hasteg 28d ago
Well I mean, based on what I said, if we truly did have “AGI” then the “AGI” would be able to argue it’s 100% correct point in court according to copyright law, no human intervention. Yes there is lawyers and judges who are making calls in court but allegedly it would be able to construct a concrete argument right? That would hold up in court. Without any buts or ands. Not disagreeing with you, I agree as of now it wouldn’t hold up. But a true “AGI” would be able to pander to anyone better than any PERSON could.