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Comment by blub | Hacker News Reader

The contractors working on my house sometimes paint a room bright pink for no particular reason.

When I point that out, they profusely apologize and say that of course the walls must be white and wonder why they even got the idea of making them pink in the first place.

Odd, but nice fellows otherwise. It feels like they’re 10x more productive than other contractors.

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I asked my contractor to install a door over the back stairs opening outward, came back, and it was installed opening inward. He told me he tried to figure out a way he could do it in-code, but there wasn't one, so that's what he had to do. I was slightly miffed he didn't consult me first, but he did the pragmatic thing.

This actually happened to me Monday.

But sure, humans are deterministic clockwork mechanisms!

Are you now going to tell me how I got a bad contractor? Because that sure would sound a lot like "you're using the model wrong"

The big difference is that when questioned he didn't profusely apologize and immediately get to work undoing it, but instead gave you a reason that was probably causally related to the decision he made and not a retroactive justification made up on the spot.

You're giving people a lot of credit. Often when I ask for justification for stupid decisions I get dumb rationale that makes no sense, or no rationale at all, or something very clearly made up on the spot.

Also, they paint the whole room for $2.41! When you add that critical detail the analogy comes into focus.

People aren't excited about AI coding because it's so much better than human coders. They're excited because it's within spitting distance while rounding down to free.

I mean I get your trying to make a joke but a contractors fucking up paint and trying to gaslight you into believing it's the one you signed off on isn't that rare.

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