agentultra

3 ms·

1.
by agentultra 8d ago
AI isn’t replacing people. Managers and executives have been sold a product that they believe they can use to replace people. Some of them probably still hold some enthusiasm for these products. But there seem to be some that are getting wi
2.
by agentultra 8d ago
An AI system cannot replace professional people. It doesn’t replicate or do the work that they do. That’s not what it is for and it is incapable of performing these tasks. If you are using these systems you still need to know what you want
3.
by agentultra 8d ago
I think it might be possible to write a TLA+ parser and generate QuickCheck tests from it that will exercise invariants at least.
4.
by agentultra 9d ago
In my experience, it depends a lot on the language and the folks you work with. I’ve gotten an eyebrow and a stern talking to for using ‘map’ in JavaScript once. Some people are die-hard about statements and keywords and imperative programm
5.
by agentultra 9d ago
Hundred percent. All about trade-offs. Although proof techniques such as proof repair have come a long way, it’s still impractical for a lot of scenarios. TLA+ is great for systems design and such. Quick check style tests are awesome and a
6.
by agentultra 10d ago
Are they slow and brittle? I like having both. Unit tests are a decent indicator for local development. Fast, quick to iterate on. Integration tests are slow as molasses and I can’t iterate with them when it takes 20 minutes to setup the su
7.
by agentultra 10d ago
Djikstra seemed like he was mostly against testing. But only because he was for proofs. A unit test is a single example. The real way to demonstrate the absence of errors is to prove they aren’t there (vis a vis axioms and assumptions). But
8.
by agentultra 10d ago
I think the harnesses might get better. And the alignment and pre training. But I don’t think the LLMs will get much better… I don’t have any sources for that though. Just napkin math. At the end of the day, even if it gets to 99.9999% reli
9.
by agentultra 10d ago
“I built a thing with AI and I don’t understand it. I want to make changes and fix things and have no ability to theorize why it fails or how to fix it.” Oh my. See, you have to be able to program it yourself before you can build it with an
10.
by agentultra 12d ago
Might be because most hit their maximum growth but need to keep growing indefinitely or risk becoming a “mature” company?
11.
by agentultra 12d ago
I think we’re more likely to die of starvation from economic collapse, heat related stress, and complications from Long COVID than an algorithm waking up and destroying us. Unfortunately our list of potential extinction events are far more
12.
by agentultra 13d ago
I’m the opposite. I don’t believe there is a royal road to understanding anything. For me, the process of programming involves frustration. That is usually when I find my greatest insights. Syntax isn’t a big deal. Names either. You can loo
13.
by agentultra 15d ago
The EPA hasn’t been able to regulate anything since it’s been gutted by the current administration. Of course it’s going to scrap rules. We’re not even allowed to measure the effects of climate change.
14.
by agentultra 16d ago
> In practice, when you reach for a database engine you're actually reaching for four basic features: unique constraints, transactions, indices, and history tables. That might be a very specific assumption. What about serializabilit
15.
by agentultra 16d ago
You can work around 12. with constraint satisfaction solvers. After generating the level structure, emplace an entrance and exit such that they are maximally apart. And emplace a strong monster in one of the rooms around the exit. And empla
16.
by agentultra 17d ago
No. Dear lord no. One thing I am getting really tired of is the growing inability to distinguish legitimate sources. I don’t want to have to play, “can you tell the difference?” It’s not fun being had by a liar. I want human written content
17.
by agentultra 20d ago
We already know how to solve for climate change. All that is lacking is political will. Not AI.
18.
by agentultra 21d ago
Why not both?
19.
by agentultra 21d ago
> just about everything in modern life, from streaming Netflix to running a dishwasher, consumes water at levels that can be portrayed as wasteful by hair-shirt environmentalists. Ad-hominems in an Economist article. This reads more like
20.
by agentultra 21d ago
Big congratulations to the world leaders and policy makers who were at the signing of the Paris Accord. Went home. And did very little about it. Now we output more CO2 faster than we ever have in our entire history. At least the economy is
21.
by agentultra 21d ago
It is a bit of a pedantic argument but I get upset when people misuse the term, abstraction , and can feel the impulse to write a blog post like this. I think it’s important to make clear the RL part and the alignment and parameter tweakin
22.
by agentultra 24d ago
> If many people hated their products, they wouldn't use them This might be true in a true, free market without monopolistic collusion and the abandonment of antitrust regulation and enforcement in the US. In many cases people don’t
23.
by agentultra 26d ago
I wrote an interpreter in Zig not too long ago. I’d definitely recommend more folks try it out. It’s a straight-forward enough project to dip your toes in emulation and see if it’s your jam. And it’s not a big enough project that you’ll get
24.
by agentultra 27d ago
Not that much of a difference for the average or lower classes of people that outnumber the rich by quite a lot. It would have a great and positive impact for them.
25.
by agentultra 1mo ago
I don’t like LSPs. They’re slow and bloated. I’ve been using clangd but I think I’ll stop. It’s slow as molasses. It constantly tries to insert headers into source files that cause compilation issues. There are easier and faster ways to jum
26.
by agentultra 1mo ago
It was already difficult to maintain before these tools went mainstream. I’ve worked with many a senior developer who couldn’t write a hash function, didn’t understand memory allocation, and could go on all day about best practices and lint
27.
by agentultra 1mo ago
In an ideal world where the market is perfect, maybe. But in reality entrenched market players have access to political influence that lets them stay entrenched. They’ve spent a lot of money since the Industrial Revolution to make sure we n
28.
by agentultra 1mo ago
There’s no such thing as destiny. You could also walk out your front door and get hit be a meteor tomorrow.
29.
by agentultra 1mo ago
Most 17 year olds I know don’t want anything to do with AI and see the entire industry as an existential threat. Nothing wrong with learning the theory and understanding the papers. Getting to that point you’ll have to get your fundamentals
30.
by agentultra 1mo ago
I’d pay for a search engine these days if it meant good results and no AI. Kagi almost fits the bill. Removing paywalled links is a great feature that any future competitor should pick up!

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