[0] https://variousbits.net/2026/02/22/building-generative-music...

We spend a whole bunch of time when we're running projects pushing back and telling clients to "think less like you and more like your audience". It's not surprising to me that clients come with pre-set notions: of course they do, it's their business, they're in it all day every day, and they're thinking about it all the time. This doesn't make them good at thinking about this stuff from alternative / audience angles!

Much as I love using Claude or whatever to help me write some code, it's under some level of oversight, with me as human checking stuff hasn't been changed in some weirdly strange way. As we all know by now, this can be 1. Just weird because the AI slept funny and suddenly decided to do Thing It Has Been Doing Consistently A Totally Different Way Today or 2. Weird because it's plain wrong and a terrible implementation of whatever it was you asked for

It seems blindingly, blindingly obvious to me that EVEN IF I had the MOST TRUSTED secretary that had been with me for 10 years, I'd STILL want to have some input into the content they were interacting with and pushing out into the world with my name on.

The entire "claw" thing seems to be some bizarre "finger in ears, pretend it's all fine" thing where people just haven't thought in the slightest about what is actually going on here. It's incredibly obvious to me that giving unfettered access to your email or calendar or mobile or whatever is a security disaster, no matter what "security context" you pretend it's wrapped up in. A proxy email account is still sending email on your behalf, a proxy calendar is still organising things on your calendar. The irony is that for this thing to be useful, it's got to be ...useful - which means it has at some level to have pretty full access to your stuff.

And... that's a hard no from me, at least right now given what we all know about the state of current agents.

Plus... I'm just not sure of the upside. Am I seriously that busy that I need something to "organise my day" for me? Not really.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46928205

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Being on screens all the time - especially when out and about (and whether it's social media or maps, it doesn't really matter) - means less casual conversation, less "hello, how you doing", less banter, less touch points with real people. It means toddlers look up out of their prams and can't meet their parents' eyes, it means you don't smile at strangers, or exchange a common glance about something trivial. It means kids don't get to sit in pubs with their parents and have to "do adult conversation". It means if you're in a situation as a teen and you're uncomfortable, you just reach for your phone instead of reaching out to the next awkward teen, who might just end up being your lifetime friend.

And then beyond that there are infinitely many takes-away-the-humanity cuts. Even something like this: once upon in our country you could buy a parking ticket for a space in a car park, then what typically happened when you got back to your car with time to spare is you then pulled up next to someone and offered them your ticket for free. This shit doesn't happen now - spaces are tied to number plates (because: profit), and so another little touchpoint with other humans is eroded.

Getting hold of many of the companies you use is becoming harder, through profit motives / AI chat / whatever - high street banks disappear, and immediately there's a whole source of contact that disappears.

We got a deal on our post-wedding train journey 25 years ago because we did it face to face with a guy in the station, and when we got chatting about the occasion and he discovered it was our wedding, he upped our ticket to 1st class. No such luck now, when you order all your tickets online, and the customer support is outsourced to somewhere a thousand miles away.

Real people are for the most part lovely people, and their motives are 95% aligned with each other - love your family, help people, be generous, be kind - but the more time we spend slipping behind digital facades, being taken away from human contact through these many papercuts, the worse things are likely to get. IMO.

Holy shit, fuck that. Slow the bejesus down and live a little. Go look at the sky.

Really hope they don't go this way...!

My point: I’m not sure “travel” as I understand it (educational, beautiful, soaking up of local culture, taking time to stand and understand as much as possible) is the same as the “travel” that others understand it.