I loved it.

We're in an age where matrix multiplication can yawn out endless passages of trite, dull, sludge. The author, to my mind, makes a powerful and inspiring case for a future for human-written prose. The ability to effectively and creatively deploy a rich and complex vocabulary is the flex (in the parlance of our times) that distinguishes the craftsmen from the clankers.

Except it's everyone everywhere. Hands up in the thread anyone who doesn't recognise some of these symptoms. Our jobs, tech and societies are making us ill.

Personally, I find a very strong link between my devices and my ability to focus, as they're the space in which I spaff my time. I do not believe myself to have ADHD, I believe that the machines I use offer limitless ways for me to lose track when I'm tired.

I'm deeply skeptical of pharmacological solutionism, particularly in the domain of mental health. A variety of drugs can be a boon, life-saving to many, but are over-prescribed and treat symptoms not causes.

With regard to amphetamines in particularly (we called it 'whizz' where I'm from, back in the day), we're talking about a class of drug that can cause dependency, problems with sleep and sex, anxiety and plenty more. I would not say they're not without side effects in the slightest.

Sure, great if this sort of stuff helps, but I find the "just get a diagnosis" line utterly inadequate and borderline disturbing.

I think scale is important here too. If you've got a user-base that's an appreciable proportion of a country's population, you're a utility. My energy supplier has a tiny fraction of the customers of say, Meta, and is subject to considerably stronger oversight.

Honestly, I've never stuck around with a bad boss long enough to get into this sort of situation with them. Life is too short.

Most managers I've had a long-term relationship with have been, at worst, overwhelmed or utterly beholden to bad priorities set further up the chain. They all have been decent enough folks, trying to do their best for the organisation.

You gotta spend all your time with these people. Rubbing your correctness in their face ain't going to make either of your work lives better.

Try doing the same with your partner, see how that goes.

Arguing with your boss in private, now that's a completely different deck of Magic cards. Totally helpful, productive behaviour if done respectfully and constructively. You're there to solve problems together, having differences of opinion is natural. Thrash it out between you in a 1:1, book time to engage and brainstorm.

Be nice, be prepared, find solutions that move things forward without bruising egos, try and get them to think it was their idea.

Importantly, you're coming to a decision in which they get the final say, because it's their team. Once a decision is made, after consultation, you just gotta roll with it. Don't bitch, or moan, or rub it in if things go wrong. Chain of command. One of these days you'll be there too.

If you keep on "losing" or finding yourself in constant conflict with your boss, that suggests a deeper problem. Jobs are like relationships, they've gotta work both ways. Maybe this isn't the right one for you (or them, but just as likely you).

Anyway. Never argue with your boss _in public_. Debate in private, come to a decision and move forward.

Otherwise, I think my perspective here is very similar. I'd personally emphasise legal publisher responsibility, a repeal of Section 230 in American.

By absolving social media platforms of legal responsibility for the content they publish, we've allowed some very unpleasant scenes to flourish in the most mainstream of places.

Well with you on the issues of addictive design. I'd throw in data harvesting, sketchy advertising, and increasingly platform- level political bias.

Age restrictions simply increase the age at which users are exposed to harms, rather than addressing those harms themselves.

These platforms have become staggeringly wealthy and powerful, it is them what needs to be controlled, not kids.

I pulled a few alternatives out there. What's your take?

In answer to your first question, what do we do. We regulate the platforms, not the users.

There are loads of things that can be done to reduce online harm, that don't just say "OK, you're over this age, you can experience online harm now".

Platforms can become legally responsible for content, they can be compelled to be transparent about their feed algorithms, enable monitoring via public APIs. We can ban infinite scroll. There are so many policy levers that can be pulled, without getting the ban-hammer out for people of an arbitrary age, and without forcing the rest of us to hand over our IDs to platforms.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48913098

Points: 11

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I'm seeing some incredibly dumb stuff: researchers spending months on Claude trying to do insane deduplication, unrelated to their research question, using regex; whole research methodologies YOLO'd out of ChatGPT.

The results invariably chaotic, resulting in huge amounts of stress and wasted time.

Non-technical people are treating LLMs like an oracle, making big assumptions and decisions with little regard for their implications, because their clanker told them to.

It's scary out there. The lack of critical thinking I'm seeing in some of these projects is horrific. Not unique to the post-AI era, certainly, but on a whole new level. Bad things are undoubtedly happening everywhere, right now, because someone's just like "let's ask Claude".