Hacker News: Aqueous

New comment by Aqueous in "Code has always been the easy part"

Aqueous — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 03:04:45 +0000

If it was the easy part, then why did they pay us hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, sometimes more - to do it? The fact of the matter is that it wasn't easy, not for a brain that's architected the way a human's is. The fact that computers can now do it much more quickly and arguably - in many cases - better doesn't diminish the act itself - it just shows how far AI has come, and how easily human intelligence will be dwarfed as it continues to make progress.

New comment by Aqueous in "New research on anesthesia and microtubules gives new clues about consciousness"

Aqueous — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 03:04:30 +0000

sorry you can’t keep up

New comment by Aqueous in "New research on anesthesia and microtubules gives new clues about consciousness"

Aqueous — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 16:39:31 +0000

Anyone who thinks LLMs have not come a long way in approximating human linguistic capabilities (and associated thinking) are in fact, engaging in (delusional) wishful thinking regarding human exceptionalism.

With respect to consciousness, you are doing nothing more than asserting a special domain inside the brain that, unlike the rest of the mechanisms of the brain, has special "magic" that creates qualia where classical mechanisms cannot. You are saying that there is possibly a different explanation for intelligence as consciousness, when it would be much simpler to say the same mechanisms explain both. Furthermore, you have no explanation for why this quantum "magic", even if it was there, would solve the hard problem of consciousness - you are just saying that it does. Why should quanta lend themselves anymore to the possibility of subjective experience/qualia than classical systems? Finally, a brain operates at 98.6° and we can't even create verifiable quantum computing effects at near absolute zero, the only place where theory and experiment both agree is the place quantum effects start to dominate. The burden of proof is on you and Penrose as what you are both saying is wildly at odds with both physics, experimental and theoretical, and recent advancements in computing. Penrose is a very smart guy but I fear on these questions he's gone pretty rogue scientifically.

New comment by Aqueous in "New research on anesthesia and microtubules gives new clues about consciousness"

Aqueous — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:58:40 +0000

In just 2-3 years we've gone from primitive LLMs to LLMs reaching Graduate PhD-level knowledge and intelligence in multiple domains. LLMs can complete almost any code I write with high accuracy given sufficient context. I can have a naturalistic dialog with an LLM that goes on for hours in multiple languages. Frankly (and humblingly, and frighteningly) they have already surpassed my own knowledge and intelligence in many, probably most, domains. Obviously they aren't perfect and make a lot of errors - but so do most humans.

New comment by Aqueous in "New research on anesthesia and microtubules gives new clues about consciousness"

Aqueous — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:34:10 +0000

What's odd about the current moment is that in the very same era in which it seems there is conclusive evidence (LLMs) that quantum explanations are not necessary to explain at the very least linguistic intelligence as advanced linguistic intelligence is possible in a purely classical computing domain, there is at the same time an insistence elsewhere that consciousness must be a quantum phenemonon. Frankly I am increasingly skeptical that this is the case. LLMs show that intelligence is at least mostly algorithmic, and the brain is far too warm and wet for quantum effects to dominate. Why should intelligence be purely classical but consciousness (another brain phenemenon) be quantum? It lacks parsimony.

New comment by Aqueous in "A useful productivity measure?"

Aqueous — Tue, 07 May 2024 22:54:12 +0000

The fact that it takes decades to master such a mundane task may mean the entire approach is wrong. The article hand-waves a lot of the complexity of "automating as much as possible."

In my opinion, the solution lies in append-only software as dependencies. Append-only means you never break an existing contract in a new version. If you need to do a traditional "breaking change" you instead add a new API, but ship all old APIs with the software. In other words - enable teams to upgrade to the latest of anything without risking breaking anything and then updating their API contracts as necessary. This creates the least friction. Of course, it's a long way for every dependency and every transitive dependency to adopt such a model.

New comment by Aqueous in "A useful productivity measure?"

Aqueous — Mon, 06 May 2024 14:03:32 +0000

"Doing them swiftly, efficiently, and -- most of all -- completely is one of the most critical skills you can develop as a team."

That all sounds great. However, I'd like to understand what teams are actually able to do this, because it seems like a complete fantasy. Nobody I've seen is doing migrations swiftly and efficiently. They are giant time-sucks for every company I've ever worked for and any company anyone I know has ever worked for.

New comment by Aqueous in "Show HN: You don't need to adopt new tools for LLM observability"

Aqueous — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 14:31:09 +0000

Not talking about just monitoring outputs though. I'm talking about monitoring the internals of the model as it reaches its output. The entire issue around interpretability / observability inside the LLM's model is the hard problem, one for which considerable resources are being dedicated to solve - not simply hooking the public-facing APIs up to observability tools like any other service API. This is just conventional telemetry. Calling this LLM observability implies there is something special about it and unique to LLMs in particular that enhances introspection into the AI model itself, which is not true. The title is highly misleading, classic startup-bro fake-it-til-you-make-it hustling crap, and deserves to be called out.

New comment by Aqueous in "Show HN: You don't need to adopt new tools for LLM observability"

Aqueous — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 21:59:09 +0000

Correct- the summary is misleading marketing. This is just normal system / service observability. What people mean by observability in the LLM context is specific.

New comment by Aqueous in "Show HN: You don't need to adopt new tools for LLM observability"

Aqueous — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 19:23:34 +0000

I thought Observability in this context means the ability to introspectively make sense of why the LLM output what it did, which is a difficult problem because the model parameters are effectively an unintelligible morass of numbers. Does this help with that and if so how?

New comment by Aqueous in "The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)"

Aqueous — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 19:59:39 +0000

I guess I'm not sure that there's a practical difference between "It's marketing" and "This is what the market rate is for a CEO." In other words, firms need to pay this much because that's what other firms are paying (at least.) That's not marketing - that's just the unfettered market at work. Which is why it needs to be fettered. I agree with the salary cap idea, because the market will naturally keep raising the price without bound unless there's something to counteract that, and it is terrible for the labor market as a whole (and even the company as a whole) to be paying so much for a CEO when the same amount could buy dozens or even hundreds of workers.

New comment by Aqueous in "Tesla's in Serious Trouble"

Aqueous — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 15:15:27 +0000

Not buying it. Tesla has a huge share of a growing pie. They will continue to grow as the EV market grows. While I agree that the past few months were not good, the long-term outlook for EVs is positive and therefore Tesla's outlook is positive.

Just because we have all decided we hate Elon Musk doesn't mean everything he has done is bad and destined to fail.

New comment by Aqueous in "Air Jordan Is Finally Deflating"

Aqueous — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 18:06:34 +0000

Oh give me a break. That’s so condescending to African Americans. If African Americans bought a certain kind of shoe, it’s because they liked the shoes. It’s fun to try shoes. People make their own choices.

New comment by Aqueous in "Lab crafts mutant Covid-19 strain with 100% kill streak in humanized mice"

Aqueous — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 17:04:54 +0000

To be sure, this kind of research, whether ‘craft’ or ‘natural’ is the correct word, is simply too risky to continue. The juice is not worth the squeeze.

New comment by Aqueous in "2023 Was a Turning Point for Microservices"

Aqueous — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 00:59:50 +0000

Those companies largely made the decision for monorepos before there was tooling to support a proper multi-repo existence.

New comment by Aqueous in "United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections"

Aqueous — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 22:47:20 +0000

Literally just flew on a United Airlines 737 MAX 9 one week ago. It seems like the craft I flew on has probably been grounded in the week since. I noticed that we were flying on a MAX before boarding and nearly asked to switch flights, but consoled myself that I was being irrational and that the planes were almost certainly fine now. Guess my confidence was misplaced.

New comment by Aqueous in "2023 Was a Turning Point for Microservices"

Aqueous — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 00:50:43 +0000

It's not applicable at all once you get beyond a few teams.

A mono-repo makes decisions for your teams.

New comment by Aqueous in "Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US"

Aqueous — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 00:42:55 +0000

However, it would also be folly to assume good will.

New comment by Aqueous in "2023 Was a Turning Point for Microservices"

Aqueous — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 22:24:51 +0000

I actually don’t want the developer experience of co-location. There are millions of things that are totally irrelevant happening in my company’s (thousands of engineers) monolith. The noise in the commit log is considerable. Isolated repos are smaller, and reduce useless coupling.

New comment by Aqueous in "Fewer people are buying electric cars in the US"

Aqueous — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 20:54:27 +0000

So "the fewer people are buying electric cars" canard is still living in a caption under the banner: "Fewer people are buying electric cars — the slowdown hints at a problem at the heart of America's EV push."