Hacker News: dougb5

New comment by dougb5 in "AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance"

dougb5 — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:02:02 +0000

""Across a variety of tasks, including mathematical reasoning and reading comprehension, we find that although AI assistance improves performance in the short-term, people perform significantly worse without AI and are more likely to give up. Notably, these effects emerge after only brief interactions with AI (approximately 10 minutes)."

AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance

dougb5 — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:42 +0000

Article URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.04721

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47682908

Points: 17

# Comments: 4

CPSC Warns Consumers to Stop Using Male-to-Male Extension Cords

dougb5 — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:49:35 +0000

Article URL: https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2026/CPSC-Warns-Consumers-to-Stop-Using-Male-to-Male-Extension-Cords-Secures-Delisting-Commitments-from-e-Commerce-Platforms

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47590147

Points: 5

# Comments: 2

New comment by dougb5 in "Employees at OpenAI and Google support Anthropic's lawsuit against The Pentagon"

dougb5 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 21:40:31 +0000

Amicus brief is here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.46...

I'd be curious to know how OpenAI and Google employees came to learn about and sign on to this brief (and, relatedly, why my OpenAI friends aren't on it.)

New comment by dougb5 in "Employees at OpenAI and Google support Anthropic's lawsuit against The Pentagon"

dougb5 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 21:34:49 +0000

https://archive.is/KpWS8

Employees at OpenAI and Google support Anthropic's lawsuit against The Pentagon

dougb5 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 21:33:50 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/891514/anthropic-pentagon-lawsuit-amicus-brief-openai-google

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47315854

Points: 6

# Comments: 2

LLM Prose Tells

dougb5 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 03:33:25 +0000

Article URL: https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/prompts/src/branch/main/prompts/LLM_PROSE_TELLS.md

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47257190

Points: 7

# Comments: 1

New comment by dougb5 in "We Will Not Be Divided"

dougb5 — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 03:08:23 +0000

Yes, it would help so much. Especially if a lot of people with money and power voiced their honest opinions at the same time.

New comment by dougb5 in "AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says"

dougb5 — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 01:27:33 +0000

Minor correction: "sparks of AGI" was in reference to GPT-4, which came out 5 months later in 2024. (https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.12712)

Words Without Consequence

dougb5 — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 05:43:38 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/02/words-without-consequence/685974/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47031286

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by dougb5 in "CIA to Sunset the World Factbook"

dougb5 — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:59:07 +0000

Not to be confused with The World Almanac and Book of Facts, which is still publishing after 140 years. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Almanac)

New comment by dougb5 in "Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads"

dougb5 — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 02:34:21 +0000

> I am far from a SamA stan, but this line was pretty good a zinger:

That zinger seemed similar to how Trump deals with criticism from the media -- he tends to begin with an attack on the ratings / popularity of the speaker.

Vim 9 Plugins for Lean

dougb5 — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 19:20:43 +0000

Article URL: https://vim.castedo.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46890355

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by dougb5 in "We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s"

dougb5 — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:25:02 +0000

I too loved that song as a kid, but it's from 1985. It felt like the right song for that era too!

New comment by dougb5 in "Open letter from more than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies"

dougb5 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 01:25:26 +0000

You can tell the message was written by committee, or by a large language model prompted to respect "both sides". No human with a soul could honestly characterize the situation as passively as this: "The recent challenges facing our state have created widespread disruption and tragic loss of life."

New comment by dougb5 in "Miami, your Waymo ride is ready"

dougb5 — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 17:38:42 +0000

We've had it for a few years in SF and, while it's very convenient, I haven't witnessed the revolution you speak of. Judging from the traffic, people still mostly get around in their personal vehicles. There's about as much parking as before and it's still a nightmare. But I'd like to believe.

New comment by dougb5 in "Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy"

dougb5 — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:09:08 +0000

To clarify the headline, this is the effect for households that use a GLP-1, not the country overall.

> Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%.

Schwarzman, OpenAI's Brockman Boost $102M Trump War Chest

dougb5 — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 02:01:52 +0000

Article URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/schwarzman-openai-brockman-boost-102-151056084.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46472023

Points: 16

# Comments: 0

Please, Don't Automate Science

dougb5 — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 20:58:21 +0000

Article URL: http://togelius.blogspot.com/2025/12/please-dont-automate-science.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46197576

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by dougb5 in ""Many students are simply refusing to do anything.""

dougb5 — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 14:24:51 +0000

Maybe colleges shouldn't have accepted these kids in the first place or shouldn't move them along. But I think the author is raising a different alarm -- the number of kids who "do nothing, want nothing, and try nothing" seems to have spiked significantly. Public schools, at least, have a mandate to care about this.

I think the problem of student motivation is much broader than this author's college; I've heard it echoed by so many professors lately, but never as poignantly.

Hacker News: dougb5

New comment by dougb5 in "AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance"

AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance

CPSC Warns Consumers to Stop Using Male-to-Male Extension Cords

New comment by dougb5 in "Employees at OpenAI and Google support Anthropic's lawsuit against The Pentagon"

New comment by dougb5 in "Employees at OpenAI and Google support Anthropic's lawsuit against The Pentagon"

Employees at OpenAI and Google support Anthropic's lawsuit against The Pentagon

LLM Prose Tells

New comment by dougb5 in "We Will Not Be Divided"

New comment by dougb5 in "AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says"

Words Without Consequence

New comment by dougb5 in "CIA to Sunset the World Factbook"

New comment by dougb5 in "Sam Altman responds to Anthropic's "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude" ads"

Vim 9 Plugins for Lean

New comment by dougb5 in "We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s"

New comment by dougb5 in "Open letter from more than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies"

New comment by dougb5 in "Miami, your Waymo ride is ready"

New comment by dougb5 in "Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy"

Schwarzman, OpenAI's Brockman Boost $102M Trump War Chest

Please, Don't Automate Science

New comment by dougb5 in ""Many students are simply refusing to do *anything*.""

New comment by dougb5 in ""Many students are simply refusing to do anything.""