Hacker News: RA_Fisher

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happened (2001) [pdf]"

RA_Fisher — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 12:38:11 +0000

I used AI to unpack it a bit here: https://statwonk.com/econometricians-can-build-decision-engi...

I'd generally point to econometrics and statistics applied to business. The key activity is causal inference and then the context determines the mix of econo vs. stats required to help the org make high-quality decisions to increase output or make it more lucrative or higher-quality.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happened (2001) [pdf]"

RA_Fisher — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 10:32:22 +0000

Econometricians can solve it, bc we can create rigorous models that map causal inputs to output.

It’s extremely advanced technology, though, and most CEOs would rather rent seek / camp than give up some decision-making power (and very few are even aware it’s possible).

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration"

RA_Fisher — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 14:30:19 +0000

It may be that they’re protecting their time.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't"

RA_Fisher — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:27:46 +0000

True, but high-quality education, whether personal or formally, tends to produce high-quality knowledge.

Yes, companies pay for what’s perceived to create revenue and profit (and yes, skills are a major factor in that).

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't"

RA_Fisher — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:54:39 +0000

I’d certainly not say it’s everything, look at all the highly-paid mediocre CEOs. Education has rigorously been shown to lead to higher incomes and wealth on average.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't"

RA_Fisher — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:26:04 +0000

Yup! I was a part of the learn to code industry. I am proud of that, bc I know my worker helped a lot of marginalized people gain wealth and power (woo!). My own occupation, stats and econometrics, requires years of higher education to even begin (and decades to master), and yet ~ half of SWE were looking down on me, disrespecting me. To be clear, there were many who were not, but usually they were from some marginalized group: women, autistic, person of color, gay, person from a poor country, etc. I thought, why is my towering knowledge not being respected? Ah, the patriarchy combined with SWE. And then as time went on I just started using my knowledge for myself / those that know and that’s worked out well (bc it’s based on actually knowing math as opposed to relying on the patriarchy).

I think it’s possible the industry eventually figures out that statisticians and econometricians know far more than CS / SWEs (bc AI will tell people), but it could be a decade from now.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't"

RA_Fisher — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:02:45 +0000

Agree, AIs are better decision-makers on average than people (just look at the grifters we've given power to). These are machines that can perform more advanced mathematics than even the most advanced mathematicians.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Why AI hasn't replaced software engineers, and won't"

RA_Fisher — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:01:37 +0000

Sadly I think this post will mislead people, bc the difficult truth (for many) is that software engineering isn't that hard and that's why AI can easily substitute that layer (lower barriers to entry than widely believed).

New comment by RA_Fisher in "AWS Bedrock to require sharing data with Anthropic for Mythos and future models"

RA_Fisher — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:21:07 +0000

I don’t think there are other models near Fable’s capabilities.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses"

RA_Fisher — Sun, 31 May 2026 13:10:29 +0000

Ah thank you for updating me there.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Anthropic surpasses OpenAI to become most valuable AI startup"

RA_Fisher — Sat, 30 May 2026 14:08:29 +0000

In what ways? LM Arena has Opus 4.7 w/ 1567 -/+ 7 vs. 1505 -/+ 10 from GPT-5.5 Codex in code. I'm currently using both.

Admittedly my recent experience tilts Opus now 4.8, but you and others have my interest piqued re: GPT-5.5 Codex so I'm trying that more now.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses"

RA_Fisher — Sat, 23 May 2026 13:59:06 +0000

Ah okay, can it work on a whole repo in an agentic way?

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses"

RA_Fisher — Sat, 23 May 2026 11:58:31 +0000

Claude Code will write the whole thing for you. Whereas doesn’t Copilot require input along the way of coding? ie- it doesn’t do all the programming for you

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses"

RA_Fisher — Sat, 23 May 2026 11:56:22 +0000

Do people bring their own then (considering work doesn’t pay for it)?

New comment by RA_Fisher in "AISLE Discovers 38 CVEs in OpenEMR Healthcare Software"

RA_Fisher — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:13:02 +0000

AI gives us a means of leverage. We can do more with less. production = f(labor, capital, technology) + eps

New comment by RA_Fisher in "€54k spike in 13h from unrestricted Firebase browser key accessing Gemini APIs"

RA_Fisher — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:41:30 +0000

Anthropic and Claude are running circles around Google / Gemini for me these days. Anthropic was quite helpful for a while but strange limit issues started popping up. The final thread was a bug that essentially broke my ability to develop. I moved over to Claude Code full time and haven't looked back. Opus 4.6 is awesome for accelerating probabilistic programming!

New comment by RA_Fisher in "US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire"

RA_Fisher — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:32:12 +0000

They’ll probably receive most if not all of Iran’s focus now.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Ask HN: How do you handle clients who don't pay on time?"

RA_Fisher — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:16:40 +0000

I limit the risk and insist on payment upfront.

New comment by RA_Fisher in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2026)"

RA_Fisher — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:43:17 +0000

Location: Brighton, MI, USA Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Bayesian statistics, econometrics, causal inference, experimental design, machine learning, AI systems, R (expert), Python (expert), SQL (expert), Stan/brms, PyMC, scikit-learn, tidyverse, PostgreSQL/Redshift, AWS, Airflow, Ansible, Terraform

Résumé/CV: https://statwonk.com/about/

New comment by RA_Fisher in "CEO of largest public hospital says he's ready to replace radiologists with AI"

RA_Fisher — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:30:44 +0000

That’s good, reducing healthcare costs will increase access and boost the our health.

Agree that AI should replace CEOs. They’re often biased in unhelpful ways that AI isn’t and it costs people wellbeing.