I say this as both someone who works with many execs, hearing their musings, and someone who no longer can justify hiring junior roles themselves.

Irrespective of that; if we take this strategy of only taking action once it is visible to the layman - our scope of actions available will be invariably and significantly diminished.

Even if you are not convinced it is guaranteed and do not believe what myself and others see. I would ask you is your probability of it happening now really that close to 0? If not then would it not be prudent to take the risk seriously?

I took a look and honestly they're the first AI puns that aren't bad

Times are changing

I wrote a small game for my dev team to experience what it’s like interacting through these painful interfaces over the summer www.youareanagent.app

Jump to the agentic coding level or the mcp level to experience true frustration (call it empathy). I also wrote up a lot more thinking here www.robkopel.me/field-notes/ax-agent-experience/

  Download every github repo
    -> Classify if it could be used as an env, and what types
      -> Issues and PRs are great for coding rl envs
      -> If the software has a UI, awesome, UI env
      -> If the software is a game, awesome, game env
      -> If the software has xyz, awesome, ...
    -> Do more detailed run checks, 
      -> Can it build
      -> Is it complex and/or distinct enough
      -> Can you verify if it reached some generated goal
      -> Can generated goals even be achieved
      -> Maybe some human review - maybe not
    -> Generate goals
      -> For a coding env you can imagine you may have a LLM introduce a new bug and can see that test cases now fail. Goal for model is now to fix it
    ... Do the rest of the normal RL env stuff

I will say that doing this for enough months has made my ability to pick up the mental model quickly and to scope how much need to absorb much quicker. It seems possible that with another year you’d become very rapid at this.

So I thought I wouldn't leave anyone out! I made a small oss game - You Are An Agent - youareanagent.app - to share in the (useful?) frustration

It's a bit ridiculous. To tell you about some entirely necessary features, we've got: - A full WASM arch-linux vm that runs in your browser for the agent coding level - A bad desktop simulation with a beautiful excel simulation for our computer use level - A lovely WebGL CRT simulation (I think the first one that supports proper DOM 2d barrel warp distortion on safari? honestly wanted to leverage/ not write my own but I couldn't find one I was happy with) - A MCP server simulator with full simulation of off-brand Jira/ Confluence/ ... connected - And of course, a full WebGL oscilloscope music simulator for the intro sequence

Let me know what you think!

Code (If you'd like to add a level): https://github.com/R0bk/you-are-an-agent

(And if you want to waste 20 minutes - I spent way too long writing up my messy thinking about agent harness dev): http://robkopel.me/field-notes/ax-agent-experience/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46849318

Points: 14

# Comments: 0

So I thought I wouldn't leave anyone out! I made a small oss game - You Are An Agent - youareanagent.app - to share in the (useful?) frustration

It's a bit ridiculous. To tell you about some entirely necessary features, we've got: - A full WASM arch-linux vm that runs in your browser for the agent coding level - A bad desktop simulation with a beautiful excel simulation for our computer use level - A lovely WebGL CRT simulation (I think the first one that supports proper DOM 2d barrel warp distortion on safari? honestly wanted to leverage/ not write my own but I couldn't find one I was happy with) - A MCP server simulator with full simulation of off-brand Jira/ Confluence/ ... connected - And of course, a full WebGL oscilloscope music simulator for the intro sequence

Let me know what you think!

Code (If you'd like to add a level): https://github.com/R0bk/you-are-an-agent (And if you want to waste 20 minutes - I spent way too long writing up my messy thinking about agent harness dev): http://robkopel.me/field-notes/ax-agent-experience/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46755568

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

What downstream implication that will have on a AX sense is certainly arguable, but I would put forward that we're already seeing it with effective harnesses such as Claude Code. The experience the agent has there is quite different to how you'd build an IDE for a human.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46721473

Points: 3

# Comments: 2

I want to share a thought experiment with you - atop an ancient Roman legal case I recall from Gregory Aldrete - The Barbershop Murder.

Suppose a man sends his slave to a barbershop to get a shave. The barbershop is adjacent to an athletic field where two men are throwing a ball back and forth. One throws the ball badly, the other fails to catch it, and the ball flies into the barbershop, hits the barber's hand mid-shave, and cuts the slave's throat-killing him.

The legal question is posed: Who is liable under Roman law?

- Athlete 1 who threw the ball badly

- Athlete 2 who failed to catch it

- The barber who actually cut the throat

- The slave's owner for sending his slave to a barbershop next to a playing field

- The Roman state for zoning a barbershop adjacent to an athletic field

Q: What legal abstractions are required to apply consistent remedies to this case amongst others?

Opinion: You'd need a theory of negligence. A definition of proximate cause. Standards for foreseeability. Rules about contributory fault. A framework for when the state bears regulatory responsibility. Each of those needs edge cases handled, and those edge cases need to be consistent with rulings in other domains.

Now watch these edge cases compound, before long you've got something that looks absurdly complex. But it's actually just a hacky minimum viable solution to the problem space. That doesn't make it fair that citizens bear the burden of navigating it - but the alternative is inequal application of the law

Previously the Fifth Circuit had relied heavily on Ginsberg v. New York (1968) to justify rational basis review. But Ginsberg was a narrow scope - it held that minors don't have the same First Amendment rights as adults to access "obscene as to minors" material. It wasn't about burdens on adults at all. Later precedent (Ashcroft, Sable, Reno, Playboy) consistently applied strict scrutiny when laws burdened adults' access to protected speech, even when aimed at protecting minors.

In Paxton the majority split the difference and applied intermediate scrutiny - a lower bar than strict - claiming the burden on adults is merely "incidental." Kagan had a dissent worth reading, arguing this departs from precedent even if the majority won't frame it that way. You could call it "overturning" or "distinguishing" depending on how charitable you're feeling.

The oral arguments are worth watching if you want to understand how to grapple with these questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckoCJthJEqQ

On 1A: The core concern isn't that age-gating exists - it's that mandatory identification to access legal speech creates chilling effects and surveillance risks that don't exist when you flash an ID at a liquor store.

Note: IANAL but do enjoy reading many SC transcripts

I know they didn’t dynamically scan for new skill folders but they did have mentions of the existing folders (slides, docs, …) in the system prompt

They gave it back then folders with instructions and executable files iirc