when someone behaves in a very predictable way I use to say "I could code you in C!". Well, turns out is Python!
ryandv•1h ago
Makes sense. A few of the Python developers I know mistake their predictable banality for profound insight.
Since everybody knows Python and is expressing the exact same ideas in the exact same way, thinking the exact same things as everyone else, these are not in fact echo chambers and cargo cult practices, they are actually enduring mathematical truths! Look, the LLM even comes to the same conclusions!
qsort•1h ago
There's the old joke that many people who fear they could be replaced by AI are in fact too self-aggrandizing, they could be replaced by a 12-line python script.
If you want to get a bit meaner, you could profitably replace some people with the empty python script.
bgwalter•1h ago
I remember the joke differently. I heard it first way before the "AI" craze from an Italian philosopher (the original program must have been recorded in the 1980s and then rebroadcast):
"People who think they can be replaced by AI will be replaced."
In other words, the cheerleaders are so dumb that they probably could be replaced.
talks about how people in low social positions (say a Bank Teller) have no opportunities to distinguish themself but have opportunities to make mistakes that they'll be held accountable for. Whereas if you are in a high social position you get to grade your own paper, get credit for your successes, and "fail up" when you screw up.
Given that neural networks get it wrong some of the kind they might be better to fill the high status positions (make up crazy stuff to say for Satya Nadella and Eric Schmidt for instance)
emp17344•1h ago
Weirdly misanthropic. Jobs exist for a reason - people who could be replaced by a python script already have been.
keybored•38m ago
- I could program a person in C
- They could be replace by a 12-line Python script
Predictably HN-misanthropic is more like it.
constantcrying•35m ago
If you work in any large organization you know that there are people who exists so that other people can not do their jobs.
deadbabe•57m ago
Some people could be replaced with nothing at all.
shagie•1h ago
Long ago... Think Geek T-shirt: "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script"
> Long ago... Think Geek T-shirt: "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script"
Whoever bought that shirt could probably use some social skills coaching. It's not a good idea to wear a shirt that indiscriminately broadcasts contempt in all directions. I get the purchasers probably confused it for humor, but there's an important difference between humor that works on a viewer TV show and and humor embedded in the interaction of you with another real person.
I had this though recently at Walmart, after seeing the third such shirt (a visual pun meaning "fuck you"). Geeks often have the same attitude problems.
palmotea•14m ago
> Our key insight is that many everyday social interactions may follow predictable patterns; efficient "scripts" that minimize cognitive load for actors and observers, e.g., "wait for the green light, then go." We propose modeling these routines as behavioral programs instantiated in computer code rather than policies conditioned on beliefs and desires.
Aren't there already materials (made for people with autism) that catalog these scripts and make them explicit?
joaquincabezas•1h ago
ryandv•1h ago
Since everybody knows Python and is expressing the exact same ideas in the exact same way, thinking the exact same things as everyone else, these are not in fact echo chambers and cargo cult practices, they are actually enduring mathematical truths! Look, the LLM even comes to the same conclusions!
qsort•1h ago
If you want to get a bit meaner, you could profitably replace some people with the empty python script.
bgwalter•1h ago
"People who think they can be replaced by AI will be replaced."
In other words, the cheerleaders are so dumb that they probably could be replaced.
PaulHoule•1h ago
https://www.amazon.com/Remember-Me-to-God/dp/B000LQ2SHG
talks about how people in low social positions (say a Bank Teller) have no opportunities to distinguish themself but have opportunities to make mistakes that they'll be held accountable for. Whereas if you are in a high social position you get to grade your own paper, get credit for your successes, and "fail up" when you screw up.
Given that neural networks get it wrong some of the kind they might be better to fill the high status positions (make up crazy stuff to say for Satya Nadella and Eric Schmidt for instance)
emp17344•1h ago
keybored•38m ago
- They could be replace by a 12-line Python script
Predictably HN-misanthropic is more like it.
constantcrying•35m ago
deadbabe•57m ago
shagie•1h ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20081204045017/http://www.thinkg...
palmotea•7m ago
Whoever bought that shirt could probably use some social skills coaching. It's not a good idea to wear a shirt that indiscriminately broadcasts contempt in all directions. I get the purchasers probably confused it for humor, but there's an important difference between humor that works on a viewer TV show and and humor embedded in the interaction of you with another real person.
I had this though recently at Walmart, after seeing the third such shirt (a visual pun meaning "fuck you"). Geeks often have the same attitude problems.