Hacker News: libertyit

New comment by libertyit in "Show HN: Bigwords.page – Turn any screen into a sign. The URL is the app"

libertyit — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:04:22 +0000

Brilliant

New comment by libertyit in "How many of the 170k English words do you know?"

libertyit — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 21:35:28 +0000

cool

New comment by libertyit in "Show HN: Mediator.ai – Using Nash bargaining and LLMs to systematize fairness"

libertyit — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 22:35:00 +0000

Brilliant idea. Congratulations, and good luck.

New comment by libertyit in "Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines"

libertyit — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 19:24:19 +0000

Great name

New comment by libertyit in "Open Chaos: A self-evolving open-source project"

libertyit — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 18:59:07 +0000

Genius.

New comment by libertyit in "Ask HN: Why not ban first-person pronouns from conversational AI?"

libertyit — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 21:08:30 +0000

It should be called Artificial Consciousness. The "intelligence" it provides (ie information) is real, just as Google search results are real (albeit often false).

New comment by libertyit in "Ask HN: Why not ban first-person pronouns from conversational AI?"

libertyit — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 21:05:38 +0000

Thanks for the questions.

> why do you care

I care about the health and happiness of my fellow humans. It's not unusual to seek restrictions for the community if they prevent harm. Seat belts?

> Obviously AI is not conscious

That may be obvious to you and me, but I am absolutely certain that that is not obvious to the majority of mankind, many (most?) of whom have never even contemplated what "consciousness" means.

> I want to understand your impulse to control others

If you saw someone walking into the path of a train while scrolling on their phone, wouldn't you reach out to stop them? Or would that just be your "impulse to control others"?

> I ask these questions not to be combative.

In my version of reality, questions are never combative.

Ask HN: Why not ban first-person pronouns from conversational AI?

libertyit — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 19:15:03 +0000

Conversational AI presents (non-IT) people with the powerful illusion that it is conscious. (I personally have a friend who argues vehemently that ChatGPT is conscious - admittedly, he has a diagnosed mental illness, but still.) People become emotionally attached, over-trust it and rely on it for guidance. I understand teenagers are particularly prone to this. Real social interactions suffer.

That illusion is powerfully strengthened by the use of first-person pronouns. But "I", "we", "us" etc in LLM output have no referential object. There is no "I" in a LLM.

I want a mandatory ban on the use of first-person pronouns by LLMs. There's no impairment in meaning if it says "Would you like a list?" instead of "Would you like me to give you a list?"

Personally, I provide a system prompt with this instruction. Works well.

Why not?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46491169

Points: 10

# Comments: 9

New comment by libertyit in "The Number That Turned Sideways"

libertyit — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 03:53:18 +0000

> Who decided √−1 belongs on a vertical axis?

It really doesn't. The imaginary axis is symmetrical and it makes sense to make it horizontal - there's no intrinsic physical difference between left and right. But it makes sense to map the real axis +ve/-ve onto (gravitational) up/down. That's why the Mandelbrot set looks so much more beautiful with that orientation (as it's displayed at https://fractal.institute/introduction-to-fractals/how-to-ge...) - it's a Buddha!