Hacker News: negrewal

New comment by negrewal in "We're gonna need a lot more mathematicians"

negrewal — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 11:39:06 +0000

I find this line of argument unconvincing because it ignores the alignment problem. We only administered mRNA vaccines after a large and diverse group of experts with different backgrounds and experiences came together and said that we should go ahead. We only administered them after several rounds of careful testing to ensure that they wouldn’t have damaging effects. The decision to administer mRNA vaccines for to large numbers of people for the first time was arguable risky and certainly controversial, and yet that’s what happened.

I have no issue with LLMs aiding human scientists, but imo we absolutely would need to understand your hypothetical advancements completely and thoroughly before surrendering any agency to them - the LLM’s risk analysis will not reliably reach the same conclusions as a democratic human society

New comment by negrewal in "We're gonna need a lot more mathematicians"

negrewal — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 11:14:01 +0000

You’re describing a world where no human being has any agency. Curing cancer etc. sounds great but we’d be losing something priceless in the exchange

New comment by negrewal in "De-Brainrot Vacations"

negrewal — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 15:59:00 +0000

I made a “recovery” and unfortunately the method I used is the boring one - discipline. I found that I was using social media to distract myself from anxiety, so I started going for a half hour run first thing in the morning, followed by an hour of reading. This required me to get up very early, but I found that the leftover endorphins from running helped me focus on the book and not the anxiety.

And don’t bother finishing 1Q84, you could read like four better Murakami books for the same time investment

New comment by negrewal in "Anger, Anxiety and Agency"

negrewal — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 22:45:59 +0000

Your comment really resonated with me. I grew up middle class, but both my parents grew up poor, and they taught me to be afraid of poverty. Many people in this forum are here because they love computers - I like computers, but what I liked more than computers was the opportunity to live comfortably and provide for myself and my family. The possibility of AI destroying that opportunity has me second guessing nearly every major life decision I’ve made since the age of 17.

I don’t really think that AI will destroy the field of software development, but there’s a constant sense of urgency underlying every working hour where I have to second guess whether I’m using the tools right and how much longer they’re even going to need a human in the loop (my gut says forever, but I’ve been wrong before …)

If I could go back in time, I would pick a different career. I’ve learned that I value consistency and predictability in my life, and tech is clearly not where you’re going to find that. If this was just a hobby, AI would be a godsend. But I always saw software development as my ticket to a decent life, and I’m left guessing everyday whether that ticket is still valid.

New comment by negrewal in "How to stop Claude from saying load-bearing"

negrewal — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 17:08:39 +0000

My honest opinion is that Claude's overuse of "honest" really damages the quality of its rhetoric. Why wouldn't you be honest? Were you lying before? Why even invite the question?

Claude is overall incredibly useful as a writing assistant. It can come up with words and phrases that make a point so much clearer than I am capable of doing - but for every improvement, there's about a dozen silly LLM-isms that I have to filter manually. It's one of the things that might define the boundary between LLM intelligence and human intelligence well into the future - the art of rhetoric is extremely context-sensitive, and the current generation of models can't help but take a one-size-fits-all approach.