Hacker News: NickDouglas

New comment by NickDouglas in "The Boundaries of Automation: A Theory of Persistent Human Participation"

NickDouglas — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:50:41 +0000

A "human in the loop" isn't just necessary to manage AI's technical failures or in cases of human responsibility. This paper explores the case where AI provides the "correct" answer to the prompt, but the human realizes important factors that weren't even in the prompt. I interpret this as "rubber ducking," but from the POV of automation.

The Boundaries of Automation: A Theory of Persistent Human Participation

NickDouglas — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:50:41 +0000

Article URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.21547

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49038319

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by NickDouglas in "Em dashes are amazing"

NickDouglas — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:24:12 +0000

Thank you, this is the deepest comment in the thread (and lol at all the self-demonstrating sentences).

I'm annoyed that so many people limit their analysis to shallow things like em dashes and "delve," and don't seem to have the critical thinking necessary to analyze textual construction, let alone actual meaning. Instead it's all cutesy remarks about how Emily Dickinson must have been an AI.

New comment by NickDouglas in "Writing by hand is good for your brain"

NickDouglas — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:42:44 +0000

Suit yourself, my family ended up with two used copies of "The Hobbit" and we kept the one that some kid had marked up.

One Schema for Every Eval

NickDouglas — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:40:39 +0000

Article URL: https://evalevalai.com/projects/every-eval-ever/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49027739

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by NickDouglas in "How to explain LLM architecture to your mom and dad"

NickDouglas — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:35:37 +0000

I might have to explain spreadsheets to my mom first, but then it'll be smooth sailing.

New comment by NickDouglas in "Q-Day has begun. Are you ready?"

NickDouglas — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:20:55 +0000

How Cloudflare and Signal migrated to post-quantum cryptography

Q-Day has begun. Are you ready?

NickDouglas — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:20:55 +0000

Article URL: https://www.ibm.com/think/news/q-day-has-already-begun-are-you-ready

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48686939

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by NickDouglas in "Om Malik has died"

NickDouglas — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:13:10 +0000

I knew Om when I was an ankle-biter writing for a Gawker blog. He was gracious and generous. Felt like everybody's favorite uncle. I hope I can be as kind to others as he was to me.