Hacker News: robotcapital

New comment by robotcapital in "Why language models hallucinate"

robotcapital — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 02:11:30 +0000

Right, that’s kind of my point. We call it “hallucination” because we don’t understand it, but need a shorthand to convey the concept. Here’s a paper trying to demystify it so maybe we don’t need to make up anthropomorphized theories.

New comment by robotcapital in "Why language models hallucinate"

robotcapital — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 01:38:49 +0000

It’s interesting that most of the comments here read like projections of folk-psych intuitions. LLMs hallucinate because they “think” wrong, or lack self-awareness, or should just refuse. But none of that reflects how these systems actually work. This is a paper from a team working at the state of the art, trying to explain one of the biggest open challenges in LLMs, and instead of engaging with the mechanisms and evidence, we’re rehashing gut-level takes about what they must be doing. Fascinating.

New comment by robotcapital in "Watching AI drive Microsoft employees insane"

robotcapital — Wed, 21 May 2025 14:09:42 +0000

Replace the AI agent with any other new technology and this is an example of a company:

1. Working out in the open

2. Dogfooding their own product

3. Pushing the state of the art

Given that the negative impact here falls mostly (completely?) on the Microsoft team which opted into this, is there any reason why we shouldn't be supporting progress here?

New comment by robotcapital in "Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class"

robotcapital — Thu, 08 May 2025 13:39:59 +0000

The article's point isn't that globalization (or policy) didn't play a role, it's that the premise of middle class downfall is false to begin with. See the section under the header "The American middle class was never hollowed out".

New comment by robotcapital in "The Future of European Competitiveness"

robotcapital — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 16:06:04 +0000

The comment you're replying to is implying real median personal income (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N), not household. Household sizes change over time.

New comment by robotcapital in "US economic growth increased last quarter to a healthy 2.8% annual rate"

robotcapital — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:49:37 +0000

I don't know if the Fed themselves gives margins of error, but the GDPNow indicator the Atlanta Fed puts out (https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow) also includes ranges for industry forecasts. In this case it seems we were above even the most optimistic expectations.

New comment by robotcapital in "Is a Universal Basic Income System Even Possible?"

robotcapital — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:43:24 +0000

Given that, would you argue that the main condition needed for UBI, or wealth transfer in general, is increased productivity?

New comment by robotcapital in "Is a Universal Basic Income System Even Possible?"

robotcapital — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 13:04:44 +0000

My understanding of marginal propensity to consume is that it decreases as wealth and income increase. The wealthier you are, the less you tend to spend as a function of the next dollar. So the inverse would imply that there would be more spending overall with UBI. We sort of saw this experiment play out with the COVID relief checks.

Given that increase in demand, I'm curious how UBI would affect the supply side. My first thought is that it would negatively impact supply since there would be less efficient allocation of people to supply-related jobs. Unless I'm off here, I struggle to see how increased demand and decreased supply wouldn't impact inflation.

New comment by robotcapital in "No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)"

robotcapital — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 15:34:45 +0000

These are (strongly?) correlated though, right? Over-regulating distribution should reduce generation because builders can’t depend as much on pricing signals.

New comment by robotcapital in "Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us"

robotcapital — Sun, 09 Jun 2024 18:01:05 +0000

We’re getting off on a tangent here about here about the mechanism behind that polarization, but it reflects the broader point I was trying to make with my comment. That is to be skeptical of simplistic answer, like “economic termites” or “corporate propaganda”, to complex topics like the economy or polarization. It might imply an agenda other than seeking the truth.

New comment by robotcapital in "Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us"

robotcapital — Sun, 09 Jun 2024 14:23:09 +0000

Part of the problem is that that “intuition” changes based on how you the ask the question and who you ask it to. A good example of this is polling that shows Americans as a whole believe the country’s finances will be worse off a year from now at twice the rate as their own personal finances[0]. So I’d argue that even anecdotes and intuition need to be taken with grain of salt, particularly given that it’s an election year with a polarized electorate.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/05/23/views-of-the...

New comment by robotcapital in "Southwest Airlines now available on Google Flights"

robotcapital — Thu, 23 May 2024 17:15:30 +0000

Though that does presume being ready to board at precisely that moment while traveling with small children. In my experience I can expect that to happen about half the time.

New comment by robotcapital in "Tech world won't have long to fall in line when EU signs off on AI Act"

robotcapital — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 15:04:51 +0000

Some of these regulations seem like they should be aimed at the government, though the article doesn't specify what organizations they would apply to. Behavioral scoring is fine for a private business that wants to prevent spam or fraud, like HN’s own karma system. While arguably the negative consequences of unfettered, untargeted CCTV scanning by the government could be greater.

Is the act meant to be anti-Tech, or anti usage of tech?

New comment by robotcapital in "Breakdown of faults by car brand: Tesla has replaced Dacia at the bottom"

robotcapital — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 14:31:36 +0000

The link you pointed to doesn’t have any empirical data and the paper it links to doesn’t seem to load. Regardless, we’re 30 years from the 90s now and if anything it seems like productivity has been accelerating since then (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB), arguably because of technology.

Also, what’s the argument for Facebook killing newspapers? Craigslist was siphoning off a main source of newspaper revenue for papers long before Facebook arrived. Would you also argue against the end result of moving on from local classifieds sections?

New comment by robotcapital in "What the Goddamn Hell Is Going on in the Tech Industry?"

robotcapital — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 13:46:30 +0000

> Yup; any department with money in their budget left over at the end of the budget period will see their budget reduced, even if they need it.

Anecdote here. I've been a senior manager at small, medium, and large (ie FAANG) tech companies over the past 20 years and I've never run into this. Teams make a case for the budgets they need and those are approved (or not) based on the finance team's overall guidance and the return on investment. I'd be curious if others have have actually seen this "use it or lose it" mentality for budgets in practice.

> And (I'm theorizing here, I know little of management layers) I'm confident that a manager's wage is a percentage of a department's budget. Therefore, it's in their interest to use up and ask for more budget constantly.

Again, not my experience. Like you say, this would create perverse incentives which would quickly become apparent to a company's overall finances.

I don't doubt these sorts of policy mistakes have happened at other companies in the past, but I'm doubtful that they're pervasive, or even common, in the tech industry.

New comment by robotcapital in "Apple Car: Bad Idea After All"

robotcapital — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 19:53:05 +0000

Another anecdote, but this is exactly how I chose my last car. I went to CarMax, filtered by CarPlay integration, and then chose from what was available. In fact, the lack of CarPlay integration is one of the main reasons I didn't consider a Tesla at the time.

From basic things like a snappy interface and keeping my podcasts in sync, to suggesting the destination based on the recent maps search I did from my phone on the way to the car, the attention to detail makes it a better experience. I don't particularly get any joy out of driving. I just want to get to my destination safely and quickly, and CarPlay makes the process less taxing.

New comment by robotcapital in "US Inflation Tops Forecasts, Cementing Odds of Big Fed Hike"

robotcapital — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 15:15:16 +0000

> Instead allow students to declare bankruptcy on student debt.

I'm curious what impact people think this would have. Or if there's any research on the subject. My initial reaction was that giving out more debt relief could only lead to more inflation. But on second thought I could see only a much smaller segment that is struggling with debt willing to go through bankruptcy. While I buy that that would be less regressive than the current proposed debt forgiveness plan, I don't see how this would affect inflation (or elections, for that matter) in any meaningful way.