Yeah because dynamic digital price signs in shops based on what data vendors have about you and AI can extract from it are such fun!
Total surveillance. More than what's already happening. Such fun!
I also love how AI enthusiasts just ignore the issue of exhausted training data... You cant just magically create more training data. Also synthetic training data reduces the quality of models.
Youre mixing up several concepts. Synthetic data works for coding because coding is a verifiable domain. You train via reinforcement learning to reward code generation behavior that passes detailed specs and meets other deseridata. It’s literally how things are done today and how progress gets made.
Would you please stop posting cynical, dismissive comments? From a brief scroll through https://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=zwnow, it seems like your account has been doing nothing else, regardless of the topic that it's commenting on. This is not what HN is for, and destroys what it is for.
If you keep this up, we're going to have to ban you, not because of your views on any particular topic but because you're going entirely against the intended spirit of the site by posting this way. There's plenty of room to express your views substantively and thoughtfully, but we don't want cynical flamebait and denunciation. HN needs a good deal less of this.
Then ban me u loser, as I wrote HN is full of pretentious bullshitters. But its good that u wanna ban authentic views. Way to go. If i feel like it I'll just create a new account:-)
But that doesn't really matter and it shows how confused people really are about how a coding agent like Claude or OSS models are actually created -- the system can learn on its own without simply mimicking existing codebases even though scraped/licensed/commissioned code traces are part of the training cycle.
Training looks like:
- Pretraining (all data, non-code, etc, include everything including garbage)
- Supervised Fine Tuning (SFT) -- these are things like curated prompt + patch pairs, curated Q/A (like stack overflow, people are often cynical that this is done unethically but all of the major players are in fact very risk adverse and will simply license and ensure they have legal rights),
- Then more SFT for tool use -- actual curated agentic and human traces that are verified to be correct or at least produce the correct output.
- Then synthetic generation / improvement loops -- where you generate a bunch of data and filter the generations that pass unit tests and other spec requirements, followed by RL using verifiable rewards + possibly preference data to shape the vibes
- Then additional steps for e.g. safety, etc
So synthetic data is not a problem and is actually what explains the success coding models are having and why people are so focused on them and why "we're running out of data" is just a misunderstanding of how things work. It's why you don't see the same amount of focus on other areas (e.g. creative writing, art etc) that don't have verifiable rewards.
The
Agent --> Synthetic data --> filtering --> new agent --> better synthetic data --> filtering --> even better agent
flywheel is what you're seeing today so we definitely don't have any reason to suspect there is some sort of limit to this because there is in principle infinite data
You are thankfully wrong. I watch lots of talks on the topic from actual experts. New models are just old models with more tooling. Training data is exhausted and its a real issue.
Well, my experts disagree with your experts :). Sure, the supply of available fresh data is running out, but at the same time, there's way more data than needed. Most of it is low-quality noise anyway. New models aren't just old models with more tooling - the entire training pipeline has been evolving, as researchers and model vendors focus on making better use of data they have, and refining training datasets themselves.
There are more stages to LLM training than just the pre-training stage :).
Not saying it's not a problem, I actually don't know, but new CPU's are just old models with more improvements/tooling. Same with TV's. And cars. And clothes. Everything is. That's how improving things works. Running out of raw data doesn't mean running out of room for improvement. The data has been the same for the last 20 years, AI isn't new, things keep improving anyways.
Well from cars or CPUs its not expected for them to eventually reach AGI, they also don't eat a trillion dollar hole into us peasants pockets.
Sure, improvements can be made. But on a fundamental level, agents/LLMs can not reason (even though they love to act like they can). They are parrots learning words, these parrots wont ever invent new words once the list of words is exhausted though.
That's been my main argument for why LLMs might be at their zenith. But I recently started wondering whether all those codebases we expose to them are maybe good enough training data for the next generation. It's not high quality like accepted stackoverflow answers but it's working software for the most part.
If they'd be good enough you could rent them to put together closed source stuff you can hide behind a paywall, or maybe the AI owners would also own the paywall and rent you the software instead. The second that that is possible it will happen.
I'd quickly trash your application if I see you just vibe coded some bullshit app.
Developing is about working smart, and its not smart to ask AI to code stuff that already exists, its in fact wasteful.
Who would've guessed after Europes citizens repeatedly voted for borderline fascist parties in plenty of countries?
"Oh no some immigrant stole something out of my garden, time to vote a party that not only introduces inhumane immigration policies but also undermines the countries whole social security net due to my inability to think outside the box and personal vendetta against immigrants, surely this will improve things" - 90% of millennials and gen x people I see. People just get dumber and dumber again, education systems are failing since decades. Politicians benefit off of that because its so much easier to introduce propaganda and introduce strawman arguments for their bullshittery. It will get so much worse globally because everyone is frying their brains with smut newspapers, social media, trash tv, youtube, twitch etc etc. Most people my age (~30) dont even have opinions anymore, they just echo whatever their current favorite influencer throws out there and call it "their" opinion without being able to elaborate on it if questioned. Also everyone takes everything so personal too, you cant have arguments anymore without one party feeling personally attacked.
I literally had someone say to me (not online) they'd like everyone to be chipped so missing people could be found easier, which left me pretty baffled given that 80 years ago my country tried to find and eradicate every jew. Humanity is beyond broken.
Other than the persistent exceptions (hungary and such) those parties either didn't win or only did so very recently.
They were also typically opposed to these kinds of surveillance measures being talked about(of course it's easy to argue they would turn around on this when in power) but it makes this whole argument fall kind of flat.
As for the rest.... given that my country Belgium nearly balkanized in the past due to sectarianism and it's influence on politics this kind of stuff was a pretty obvious big downside to the migration of the past 2 decades from the start. (It really does become a ball and chain on every kind of effective policy) Especially since we're a bit ahead of many countries on the migration front too.
> They were also typically opposed to these kinds of surveillance measures
The mistake one should not make is thinking that those parties have any policy for the common good. People, from journalists to the man on the street, ignore all the lies, the crazy things, the falsehoods refuted by science, the attacks on the rule of law--only to discuss their political marketing flyer like it would constitute any real policy, as if these parties leaderships are sponsored just for that.
And when these populists get in power and do the complete opposite of everything they had promised, then the press will miss that, because the press is so easily distracted by the bullshitting clowns. In the mean time, fewer and fewer people believe in democracy anymore.
His whole argument is extremely solid. I am sorry.
>His whole argument is extremely solid. I am sorry.
His argument implies it is because of these parties when again. It's countries where they are not in power leading this charge and this started well before the increase in popularity of said parties.
Meanwhile these parties typically vote against.
>get in power and do the complete opposite of everything they had promised, then
I have the impression that most people believing and repeating this "great replacement" narrative are not members of the demographics they claim are being replaced. To me it seems mostly spread by people living outside of Europe trying to paint Europe in a bad light in order to push fear and anti-immigration policies in the general west.
Unfortunately, it's not an uncommon thing to hear from people when performing community outreach (think door knocking). External push, definitely, but it's also being repeated by the demographic this narrative is being pushed to.
I can't comment on whether or not they believe it, but it's certainly repeated by some here in Ireland.
> but it's certainly repeated by some here in Ireland.
To be fair to Ireland and history they have a valid complaint going back centuries wrt outsiders taking their lands, language, governance, food and labour all while debating "the Irish Question" and reaching for eugenic "solutions".
> To be fair to Ireland and history they have a valid complaint going back centuries wrt outsiders taking their lands, language, governance, food and labour all while debating "the Irish Question" and reaching for eugenic "solutions".
Odd then, that they didn't notice when this happened post GFC when basically all of the land banks and large assets were sold off to (predominantly) US based private equity funds.
And honestly, Irish anti-immigration sentiment is far more driven by both our complete failures at building infrastructure for a growing population (which we've never had before) and the fact that all refugees are housed in poor areas (which already had much worse services).
But it's very important that no residents of South Dublin should be inconvenienced, even at the cost of our society.
I more or less nodded along in general agreement save for
> for a growing population (which we've never had before)
and feel I might remind you that in the time span of my comment (past centuries) Irelands population nearly tripled in the 40 years following 1700 to a peak greater than the current population number.
> and feel I might remind you that in the time span of my comment (past centuries) Irelands population nearly tripled in the 40 years following 1700 to a peak greater than the current population number.
True, the political system was very different then though, and the government of the time (to put it lightly) was not concerned with the needs of those citizens (c.f. penal laws etc).
I wouldn't say anyone didn't notice "when basically all of the land banks and large assets were sold off", there was years of protest and reporting about this.
> Irish anti-immigration sentiment is far more driven by both our complete failures at building infrastructure
Yeah, I'd largely agree it's a services issue, and most people I speak with correctly direct that anger at the state.
> I wouldn't say anyone didn't notice "when basically all of the land banks and large assets were sold off", there was years of protest and reporting about this.
I definitely was upset at the time, but didn't really notice many people paying attention. We basically sold off our future development policy to get out of the Troika bailout (and I understand why this happened, but I think the long term consequences of this are have been shown to be really, really bad).
> Yeah, I'd largely agree it's a services issue, and most people I speak with correctly direct that anger at the state.
And they are correct to do so. Basically all FFG have done is wait until the housing issue had gone way too far (and started impacting their voters) and then done a bunch of demand side initiatives which have just pushed up prices rather than focusing on the development side.
Not to mention the absurdity of our national spatial strategy where we won't zone more in Dublin and instead want people to move to Meath & Wicklow and commute for hours to their jobs.
But at least no-one's left in negative equity. FML.
So if you look at money, education etc basically the south of Dublin is incredibly rich relative to the rest of the country. It tends to be where much of the media and business interests of the country are focused, and you never see (for example) a Traveller halting site, or an immigration centre being set up there. Whereas, if you look at a place like Tallaght (which to be fair is also south dublin) you'll see worse services, and lots of immigration centres.
It's a comment on the geographical inequalities and their impact on politics.
Don't get me wrong, I live in a similar Northside enclave, but it's really upsetting to me that much of the media and political elite live in bubbles where they don't see the consequences of their (bad) decisions.
Well, those are common talking points in some quarters, but I can tell you they're false, because I live in a southside suburb, the kind of place that journalists describe as "leafy". For the last couple of years, a large immigration centre has been operating a kilometer and a half away from my house. (You haven't heard of it because there were no protests about it.) There's a halting site located a kilometer away from me in the other direction.
Is the system perfect? No, of course not. But the Us vs Them polemics are unfair.
> Is the system perfect? No, of course not. But the Us vs Them polemics are unfair.
Fair enough, I recognise that I may have been unfair to many residents of South Dublin in my generalisation. That being said, there is a really common pattern of anything that inconveniences higher income voters being pushed into poorer areas.
For a good example, look at where all of the large apartment buildings are being actually built (as opposed to being judically reviewed). There's a pretty clear pattern of them being built in poorer areas relative to richer ones, and I guess that's where I'm coming from here.
Like, I live in a similarly leafy suburb (but on the Northside) and they wanted to build a set of high rise apartments on a junction next to the N3, and it was shut down with many angry comments. Meanwhile, over by Blanchardstown shopping centre (a much poorer area) they're building a similarly sized apartment block with local objections being steam-rollered.
IMO there's a massive difference between what's happening today, with individuals claiming asylum, compared to the State level interference of our history.
Seems like a low bar given the entire span of Britain's history - Londinium was founded by Mediterraneans, Danelaw covered half the Big Island for a good period, the Anglo-Saxons were Germanic immigrants pushed back by the Norman wave . . .
The UK is immigrant wave after wave all the way back to when it was nothing but solid ice pressing down the entire landmass and practically all the islands.
They're clearly not being replaced, as a look at the numbers indicates, but what is true for most European countries is that if the low birth rates stay far below 2.1 their populations will continue to decline and their economies will shrink, if they don't manage to offset that trend with controlled yearly immigration.
To clarify: Although it follows mathematically with constantly low birth rate, dying out is, of course, not a likely consequence. It seems likely that at some point when the economies shrink poverty would hit so seriously that the birth rates would start increasing again, as they seem to be negatively correlated with standards of living. However, we're talking about levels of shrinkage that feel like a collapse of the economy and social security/pension systems.
IMO the problem lies with this statement. For people like OP any "control" of immigration is going to be responded with the same criticisms. Because if you take a stance hard enough, any of these controls can be spun into anti-immigration.
By "controlled" I had something else in mind than what you seem to insinuate, namely that the yearly immigration rate must roughly match the desired long-term population stability. For a reasonable immigration system, you need to welcome the immigrants you want to get, provide a long-term perspective, and offer some incentives for them to come. Unlike the US, European countries have often failed at that basic job, or at least their immigration politics have been erratic and without constancy. Phrases like "a stance hard enough" are a symptom of the problem.
The biggest failure is that part of "provide a perspective" - not even a long-term. Immigrants were accepted and... that was all, probably expecting the invisible hand, or Santa, to magically sort stuff up. And then acting surprised when immigrants who were denied the right to work looked into, ahem, "alternate" income sources, or original cultural behaviors got carried over. One could even get the idea that all these failures were by design to keep a handy scapegoat for their own failures (or misdeeds). Thus the anger of the alt-truth crowd not only with said immigrants but also with the system which failed everybody (except the system people).
My country (Germany) still consists out of 72.65% Germans (Wikipedia/Destatis Sept. 2025).
Every other ethnic doesn't surpass 4%.
Being an open and multicultural country kinda implies that other ethnics have a place here, and that's a good thing. Nationalism is the last thing my country needs.
You hope to discredit the argument that European peoples are being replaced by categorizing it as a crazy conspiracy theory about Jews or whatever. I'm merely making a conclusion based on current immigration trends.
>>Oh no some immigrant stole something out of my garden
I thought it was more because of them driving over people at Christmas markets, forming rape gangs or stabbing random people on the streets. It's deep intellectually dishonesty like yours that is driving them to that "party". Which is a bit ironic isn't it?
You have a weird sense of humanity if any of the attached links make you feel they were overblown. Why should Germans import all that necessary extra death and trauma when they have enough of their own?
Cory's new book is also a pretty cool read, glad I found his work. Shows the enshittification processes big tech went through really well. Also touches on the post-american internet.
Yup same story here, also warehouse optimization. I was the reason the employees got new scanners and oh my... the scanners didn't have a physical keyboard. Now all the 50yo+ would have to aim on a touch display which is apparently impossible.
Also we had to introduce some fixed locations and storage placement recommendations. Our storage workers almost revolted. After a few months it settled though.
It 100% was about optimization. Introducing new devices, with more capabilities (storage place recommendations for example), that weren't 10 years old and broke every 2 weeks is optimizing.
I have 500€ in my bank account, 3k debt and 30 years of work left ahead of me and I take a lot of idle time in cafes or trains or the park. I don't see the issue.
The sooner one realizes that working hard isn't the key to life the sooner one realizes you'll have plenty more time. If you get something out of working hard, like joy, sure go ahead. But dont lie to yourself and think that working hard will actually ever pay off.
I do not earn enough to ever afford a house without going into debt for the rest of my life. As long as I can afford a cheap place, one new book a month and a hot shower in the morning I am content with never owning anything. As thats the world all the "hard working" people shoved us into.
>I take a lot of idle time in cafes or trains or the park. I don't see the issue.
Well, it sounds like you're not american. You have trains to use and clean parks, for one. That's nice.
>The sooner one realizes that working hard isn't the key to life the sooner one realizes you'll have plenty more time.
We're given decreasingly less choices, sadly. Work hard and cheap or be unable to pay rent and be kicked to the streets. The Social network over here is so broken that many have zero safety net, in terms of both government and community. Let alone a new book and a shower (well, maybe you get a gym subscription. I've heard that as a "life hack" for homeless people).
I'll agree on that. Europes facade is crumbling as well but people are too comfortable to do anything about it. Maybe the rough times in the USA actually make people take action.
I'm an American living in the EU for the last 1.5 y due to a work assignment. From what I observe here rough times and hard choices are coming for Europe, and probably relatively soon. I am sorry to say it, but I believe (as the saying goes) it is later than you think.
As for relying on your democratic process: I hope you are right.
You don't see the issue because you're not squeezed yet.
Imagine there are no more cheap places to rent anymore and American work culture invades Europe. Shops are no longer closed on Sunday, you're expected to be on call on weekends, and you have a paltry 14 days of vacation for the year.
This would require a lot of changes in basic human rights and legislatures that would never go through within my lifetime so Ill just not think about this. Nuclear war is far more likely to happen during my lifetime.
Wait, I live in central Europe, shops are normally open on Sunday and I do have to be on call on weekends (albeit only once a month). Did I miss the part where we became America?
are those who can pay people who understand it*
reply