Hacker News: thesumofall

New comment by thesumofall in "Coding is not solved"

thesumofall — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 18:36:15 +0000

There is probably a marvelous software core in many large enterprises but at least in my experience it’s surrounded by layers and layers of very basic stuff. Read from a database, write to a database (often not even with any logic dealing with parallel read/writes). Excel Macros. Basic forms to submit data. Scripts to print some stuff from a database. …

New comment by thesumofall in "Coding is not solved"

thesumofall — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 18:29:51 +0000

I guess experiences differ across companies and industries. I work in logistics. Logistics deals with messy processes and a messy reality all the time. A tiny fraction of that is due to buggy software. Some of it could be avoided with great software, but again: that we also didn’t have before LLMs

New comment by thesumofall in "Coding is not solved"

thesumofall — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 15:58:31 +0000

Yes. Bad UI, cumbersome flows, too little automation, … plenty of flaws, but the business just keeps on running. Orders received, invoices written, documents shared, …

New comment by thesumofall in "Coding is not solved"

thesumofall — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 15:15:50 +0000

I think the author underestimates how boring and simple 90% of enterprise software is. The part that isn’t powering aircraft and power plants. So much of it originates from one-nighters, badly managed subcontractors, and requirements that are of low quality to begin with (because they are written by people who have very different day jobs). And you know what? Most of that runs 24/7 without a glitch. LLMs just gives us more of that. And maybe it’s even better

New comment by thesumofall in "Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating?"

thesumofall — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 06:08:01 +0000

Not a lawyer, but I’m reasonably sure things like the HF incident _are_ considered a crime? It’s just that no one pressed charges yet?

New comment by thesumofall in "The EU has begun enforcing the AI Act: first RFIs to model providers"

thesumofall — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 06:54:30 +0000

Absolutely fair points!

> Regulation before the market has even settled down

The counter point would be: the major AI providers have seemingly also lost control of their creation. So at the very least both sides are doing things before they fully understand what they are doing. Also, looking at the (planned) IPOs and the share of AI in S&P 500, one could argue that while the market hasn’t settled, it already is a massive market. When should we start regulating? Eventually it will be too late

> Regulation that cannot practically be implemented or complied with

Yes. Having worked with one EU authority, it’s still people who eventually do the enforcing. That has the risk of corruption but I have also seen repeatedly that they won’t do something if it violates common sense. As always, there is room for interpretation and enforcement and it will be used. Like with any good governance. And companies still can (and do!) sue

New comment by thesumofall in "The EU has begun enforcing the AI Act: first RFIs to model providers"

thesumofall — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 06:28:50 +0000

One can and must discuss and challenge all these regulations, but this seems better than just sliding carelessly into some sort of mega-corp dystopia. It is good to have some balance of power. Is the EU perfect? Absolutely not, but neither are the corporates. Ideally, compromises will be found (and mostly they are found). Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen here? If this slows down the European economy, that’s a trade-off Europe has chosen to take (and yes, I’m very aware of the difficulties of fair representation in such a complex entity as the EU). We now have three big power blocks with very different politics and governance models. Isn’t that so much better than just playing one massive bet on a few big AI players? Honestly, I think it is exciting!

New comment by thesumofall in "Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree"

thesumofall — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 16:57:57 +0000

There might be a set of people for whom that might be true. There are a lot of people for whom that is not true and, fair or not, they will have an easier time to make things happen in the world

New comment by thesumofall in "Our position on open-weights models"

thesumofall — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:04:07 +0000

Today’s surface areas are gigantic and many of them will - in a typical company - not be chosen by cybersecurity experts. How do I hide the physical location of an office that offers physical access to the company’s network? How do I hide which OS the company is using? How do I hide the underlying technology of customer-facing systems? How do I hide which SaaS services I use?

New comment by thesumofall in "Design is compromise"

thesumofall — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 17:37:38 +0000

No, a compromise can also be a win-win. It balances potentially extreme positions, it adds further perspectives, it forces all parties to consider what is most important to them. If the only alternative to a compromise is no agreement, it may actually be the only way to win

What will be left for us to work on?

thesumofall — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:07:14 +0000

Article URL: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/talks/icml-2026-annotated-slides/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897272

Points: 9

# Comments: 3

New comment by thesumofall in "President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'"

thesumofall — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 05:56:06 +0000

But isn’t that what the parent says? Fix the underlying laws instead of relying on a single person to randomly overrule the law

New comment by thesumofall in "How employment changes when firms adopt generative AI"

thesumofall — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 06:10:13 +0000

Skeptical of the study approach, but it is an entirely possible scenario if we don’t hit AGI. Many of the non-tech companies are only now starting to invest into AI. For many of them, AI might unlock new business approaches. Eg a company switches to real time pricing. Great, but suddenly you need people swapping price tags. Or you launch a project to replace paper price tags with electronic tags. Those need to be regularly maintained and charged, etc. Oops, our legacy ERP system can’t deal with that. Let’s upgrade that

New comment by thesumofall in "The Boeing 747 begins its final descent"

thesumofall — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 17:26:29 +0000

It’s such a beautiful plane. Despite having worked for Airbus, the 747 triggers emotions for me that the A380 simply doesn’t. It represents an era of aerospace engineering that will not come back (in many cases probably for the better - but still!)

New comment by thesumofall in "The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends"

thesumofall — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 17:16:16 +0000

Because it is really hard to reliably hire good people. Almost all typical signals & methods (CVs, experience based interviews, …) have very low reliability. An IQ test has the highest reliability according to studies but would be illegal in most jurisdictions. Plus, hiring managers frequently don’t know what they want or they believe they want something that they actually don’t

New comment by thesumofall in "UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s"

thesumofall — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 15:32:54 +0000

If there was any smart way of doing it, we should block it for everyone. Very little good has come of it. Also solves the age verification problem. It’s soooo difficult to not fall into the addiction trap, and I’m exhausted from keeping myself away from it.

New comment by thesumofall in "Claude Fable 5"

thesumofall — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:23:42 +0000

Historically, this has nothing to do with lying, but is all about the founding idea of the social security system that all parties (workers, employers, state) carry part of the burden. Employers were supposed to pay their fair share because they also benefitted from the system (a sick or injured employee is not a productive one). Or saying it differently: the employer pays an insurance premium to reduce the effects of sickness. That premium is tied to the „value“ of the employee as measured by their salary.

There is plenty to improve with the system but to call it „retarded“ considering how much good it has brought to the world seems quite wrong to me. I don’t want to work in the pre-Bismarck era

New comment by thesumofall in "Where is the AI jobs crisis?"

thesumofall — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:42:19 +0000

To me, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to hire fewer juniors because of AI. This assumes that the only thing AI can’t replicate is experience. This in itself already seems questionable, but most importantly what about creativity, relating to humans, common sense, etc.?

If you had to hire a concierge for a hotel, would you rather take a guest-oriented, quick-witted junior or an AI? If you could either take a Waymo or an 80-year old driver, what would you take?

I don’t believe hiring managers think that one-dimensionally. Roles are unique and in some roles experience is more important than in others. Plus, juniors already balance their lack of experience with lower salary expectations.

The much easier explanation for the anecdotes: companies are more cautious at the moment and if you only have a few positions to hand out, you rather take the proven hand than risking it on someone who hasn’t shown yet that they can do it

New comment by thesumofall in "Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing"

thesumofall — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 07:51:25 +0000

Plenty of comparisons here between salaries and token costs. All fair but very much assumes that salaries are rational. Why do we pay some engineers 10x as much for the same role just because they are in a different location? The WFH discussion surfaced some of that. If money is cheap, all sorts of funny things are happening. Is it worth to spend 1500 USD on AI? I don’t know. Is it worth paying engineers 300k USD instead of 30k? Honestly, I don’t know

New comment by thesumofall in "Hindenburg’s Smoking Room"

thesumofall — Mon, 18 May 2026 04:55:57 +0000

Not necessarily safer but safe enough. A modern 4 engine jet should still be safer than the 2 engine equivalent