Hacker News: Planktonne

New comment by Planktonne in "Resist "AI""

Planktonne — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:29:56 +0000

That's a lot of leaping to conclusions based on a small criticism.

I'm rather tired, personally, of the HN trope of people saying that AI is bad for/mis-used by everyone except a carefully-defined group that consists of exactly them.

If you're curious now only with AI, I'd say that makes you less curious--"intellectually hungry"--than the people who were curious before, without AI. It's great that you feel you can be more curious now, but I wouldn't be so quick to declare yourself superior to others with no more evidence than that you use AI the same amount.

New comment by Planktonne in "Resist "AI""

Planktonne — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:42:39 +0000

> I do think that for the atypical user that is "information-hungry,"

> Prior to AI, I would have just... not spent the time looking them up.

You're putting yourself in the group of people who are 'information-hungry', but your own evidence suggests that's not the case.

New comment by Planktonne in "Resist "AI""

Planktonne — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:33:02 +0000

I don't think that's a reasonable read; you can't dismiss a specific criticism on the (unsupported) ground that the person making it would totally have dismissed anything at all.

New comment by Planktonne in "Resist "AI""

Planktonne — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:43:59 +0000

> feel no need to differentiate themselves from other anti-technology arguments

Why should they? Other "anti-tech" arguments include

- Concern about global warming/pollution

- Resistance to nuclear/chemical warfare

It's not just, or even primarily, that anti-tech arguments are the equivalent of 'cameras will steal souls'.

New comment by Planktonne in "More questions about whether researchers can trust OpenAI with unpublished math"

Planktonne — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 10:25:30 +0000

I answered your initial question in good faith, but it's increasingly clear each time you shift the goalposts that you're more interested in JAQ than discussing.

As before, despite your prevarication, I've provided examples of

- Massive lawsuits

- Risks to consumer trust

That's what was asked for; your assertion that it will totally all be fine doesn't invalidate that.

I know you are excited to quibble endlessly over this, but it's transparently disingenuous each time you jump to a new point and pretend it was there originally.

Consider: if your point was defensible, you would have been able to make it honestly.

New comment by Planktonne in "More questions about whether researchers can trust OpenAI with unpublished math"

Planktonne — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:08:17 +0000

They're being sued for several issues that resulted in the deaths of users; that's not fraud, but it is against their users.

The parallel still holds, and the information is still on the page I linked.

New comment by Planktonne in "Amazon pilots ad services in ChatGPT"

Planktonne — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 20:10:26 +0000

The smartest minds in advertising convinced everyone they were in tech.

New comment by Planktonne in "More questions about whether researchers can trust OpenAI with unpublished math"

Planktonne — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 20:07:45 +0000

Nonsense; the claim was that they wouldn't do anything that would mean they'd be

> risking massive lawsuits and a total loss of trust

Evidence of the massive lawsuits and lack of trust seems pretty relevant.

New comment by Planktonne in "More questions about whether researchers can trust OpenAI with unpublished math"

Planktonne — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 15:38:08 +0000

You can read their Wikipedia page [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI#Governance_and_legal_is...

New comment by Planktonne in "More questions about whether researchers can trust OpenAI with unpublished math"

Planktonne — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 08:33:29 +0000

They've done similar things with similar risks repeatedly.

New comment by Planktonne in "Copyright does more harm than good and should be abolished"

Planktonne — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 15:56:28 +0000

The industrial revolution and the British empire are both extremely clear proof that Britain was in no way 'crippled'. Particularly not in the world of knowledge, given the countless inventions involved.

If the creation of copyright was so harmful to the nation, why was there no harm?

New comment by Planktonne in "Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit"

Planktonne — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:04:26 +0000

It's not clear that it actually does help solve crimes. It might even exacerbate them.

There's been a lot of stalking enabled by Flock cameras.

New comment by Planktonne in "Copyright does more harm than good and should be abolished"

Planktonne — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:48:27 +0000

> in 1710, that crippled the world of knowledge in the United Kingdom

How do you account for the industrial revolution under this framing, or the global dominance of the British Empire?

Its really hard to argue that 1710 onwards marked the downfall of Britain, given everything that happened in history after that.

New comment by Planktonne in "Copyright does more harm than good and should be abolished"

Planktonne — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:41:02 +0000

I know this is a popular take on HN, but it's very much one that collapses the moment you think about it. Abolishing copyright would only enable the large corporations further.

New comment by Planktonne in "Copyright does more harm than good and should be abolished"

Planktonne — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 09:13:24 +0000

> A possible first step could be giving copyright owners a single obligation: you have to sell what you own

This would be wildly unreasonable and totally unethical. Every picture taken by a photographer has to be available on the market immediately?

Think through the ethical implications of that.

New comment by Planktonne in "Copyright does more harm than good and should be abolished"

Planktonne — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 09:06:28 +0000

Mandating that creators lose control and the ability to profit from their work almost immediately will absolutely not encourage the production of new works.

New comment by Planktonne in "We have a year to fix security everywhere"

Planktonne — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:18:23 +0000

There's no logic here already; the principle you should be applying is Hitchen's razor[1].

There is no reason to assume that super intelligent evil AI with magic powers will appear; while we are purely in the realm of (hackneyed) fantasy, why stop at imagining just one thing? You can build the whole story, not just the basilisk.

The parent comment is a story, not a prediction; it should be treated like one.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor

New comment by Planktonne in "We have a year to fix security everywhere"

Planktonne — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:28:23 +0000

You don't need to shut down open-weight models to avoid SkyNet; it's not relevant at all.

New comment by Planktonne in "We have a year to fix security everywhere"

Planktonne — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 08:16:00 +0000

This is groundless speculation; if you're going to go that far off the map, then we don't need to worry because a good AI (blue eyes not red) will have learnt to love by then and will save us.

There is currently no reason to believe that such a superintelligence is likely or would have any of the powers people claim.

New comment by Planktonne in "An Alien Mind"

Planktonne — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 19:03:54 +0000

Coming equipped to discuss a topic before chiming in is your responsibility.