Hacker News: robinhoode

New comment by robinhoode in "Please don't say mean things about the AI I just invested a billion dollars in"

robinhoode — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 02:04:22 +0000

If we lived in a sane society, AI would actually be used for good.

AI is literally trained on by humans, used by humans. If humans are doing awful things with it, then it's because humans are awful right now.

I strongly feel this is related to the rise of fascism and wealth inequality.

We need a great conflict like WW2 to release this tension.

New comment by robinhoode in "If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?"

robinhoode — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 13:18:57 +0000

> This is a bad deal. Capital makes the marginal worker more productive, not less.

Why should workers care about being more productive if they do not reap the rewards in terms of wages?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_of_wages_from_produ...

New comment by robinhoode in "AI's Dial-Up Era"

robinhoode — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 22:13:29 +0000

Railroads need repair too? Not sure if it's every 4 years. Also, the trains I take to/from work are super slow because there is no money to upgrade.

I think we may not upgrade every 4 years, but instead upgrade when the AI models are not meeting our needs AND we have the funding & political will to do the upgrade.

Perhaps the singularity is just a sigmoid with the top of the curve being the level of capex the economy can withstand.

New comment by robinhoode in "Trump pardons convicted Binance founder"

robinhoode — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 21:51:18 +0000

Of course they can. Republicans (well MAGA in particular) don't are about hypocracy. They make exceptions for Trump on everything.

New comment by robinhoode in "How the AI Bubble Will Pop"

robinhoode — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 12:13:15 +0000

This is the thing with AI: We can always come up with a new architecture with different inputs & outputs to solve lots of problems that couldn't be solved before.

People equating AI with other single-problem-solving technologies are clearly not seeing the bigger picture.

New comment by robinhoode in "An Overwhelmingly Negative and Demoralizing Force"

robinhoode — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 13:25:46 +0000

> Yes, and where do you suppose experienced developers come from?

Almost every time I hear this argument, I realize that people are not actually complaining about AI, but about how modern capitalism is going to use AI.

Don't get me wrong, it will take huge social upheaval to replace the current economic system.

But at least it's an honest assessment -- criticizing the humans that are using AI to replace workers, instead of criticizing AI itself -- even if you fear biting the hands that feed you.

New comment by robinhoode in "AI 2027"

robinhoode — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 01:05:58 +0000

> In this world people become more like pests. They offer no economic value yet demand that AGI owners (wherever publicly or privately owned) share resources with them. If people revolted any AGI owner would be far better off just deploying a bioweapon to humanely kill the protestors rather than sharing resources with them.

This is a very doomer take. The threats are real, and I'm certain some people feel this way, but eliminating large swaths of humanity is something dicatorships have tried in the past.

Waking up every morning means believing there are others who will cooperate with you.

Most of humanity has empathy for others. I would prefer to have hope that we will make it through, rather than drown in fear.

New comment by robinhoode in "An electric new era for Atlas"

robinhoode — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 19:22:03 +0000

It's a hypothetical deployment but it's reasonable to expect. These robots will be very valuable, and everyone will want one. It's not going to become a housemaid in a few years. But will they be making car parts? Almost certainly. Moravec's paradox is still in play, but advancement in AI chips will slowly overcome it.

New comment by robinhoode in "Ask HN: How to Publish on Your Own?"

robinhoode — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 21:38:36 +0000

> You could self-publish and use it as an "in" to working for a PI over the summer

This. Publishing is not an end onto itself. Think of it as a chance to get your foot in the door of the research community.

New comment by robinhoode in "A Solution for Loneliness: Get out and volunteer, research suggests"

robinhoode — Tue, 21 May 2019 19:31:22 +0000

That sounds awesome!

However, I don't quite see how the volunteering is connected to your startup.

New comment by robinhoode in "Leveraging A Poor Memory In Engineering"

robinhoode — Sat, 30 Mar 2019 14:06:39 +0000

Reading that line made me cringe. Memorizing APIs come in handy for interviews or perhaps fixing bugs in production but not so much for day-to-day work.

Now, math equations or the minute details of data structures and algorithms.. Those can be hard to internalize and knowing them well is very helpful when reading papers or other diving into open source projects which make critical use of advanced, specialized knowledge.

New comment by robinhoode in "Theorem Proving in Lean"

robinhoode — Tue, 29 May 2018 00:54:47 +0000

This seems really cool!

Unfortunately I can't seem to get the live compiler to work properly. I get this message when I check the JS console:

Failed to execute 'postMessage' on 'DedicatedWorkerGlobalScope': DOMException object could not be cloned.

New comment by robinhoode in "Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2015?"

robinhoode — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 16:07:45 +0000

Nice to see someone name drop Bigger Pockets! That was my first big project as a Rails developer.

New comment by robinhoode in "Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2015?"

robinhoode — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 15:51:29 +0000

Is anyone doing old-fashion landlording these days? I'm trying to break into that space, but I have no idea what I'm doing and could use some advice from someone who's done it before.

New comment by robinhoode in "How Your Brain Decides Without You (2014)"

robinhoode — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 15:15:41 +0000

> An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur.

Even when this regression is finite, it has a name: anxiety.

New comment by robinhoode in "Ask HN: What skills would you invest in learning?"

robinhoode — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:29:21 +0000

In my experience I've found that you can automate a lot of white collar work if the rest of the business will become organized enough to make that happen. If they aren't collecting or ingesting the right data already, then the hard part is changing their behavior, not writing the code.

New comment by robinhoode in "Talking About Money"

robinhoode — Fri, 01 May 2015 22:57:48 +0000

What books can I read to, at the very least, attempt address the questions in your 3rd paragraph, given how unique every business is? Isn't anything you find a book on sales or marketing so abstract that it's 2 or 3 layers of assumptions before you can talk about projections? How does one begin a career in SaaS sales / marketing? What makes for a good "portfolio piece" in that domain?

New comment by robinhoode in "The Bipolar Lisp Programmer (2007)"

robinhoode — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 15:09:34 +0000

Reposting is one thing. It's another when it's been reposted dozens of times and it somehow gets voted to the top.

New comment by robinhoode in "FBI blasts Apple, Google for locking police out of phones"

robinhoode — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 01:23:18 +0000

> Agreed, and it's shocking that this Washington Post article does not raise these points at all

Dude, the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos. Of course he's going to attack Apple and Google for their phones, while his phone kind of flopped.

New comment by robinhoode in "Dark net drug markets kept alive by great customer service"

robinhoode — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 14:10:43 +0000

> The statistics from places with lax drug laws, decriminalization, partial legalization, etc suggests that everyone who actually wants to do drugs long term already does, and that most (if not all) of the rise in drug use you see at a law change is just people experimenting and then deciding against routine use.

All the people I've met who took drugs and then became violent or addicted had problems well before the drugs were there.

All the people I've met who could handle drugs were well adjusted, or were on their way to becoming well adjusted.