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Selkirk

37 karma · joined June 20, 2016

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Selkirk··on Show HN: ADRs for AI – Deliberation records for human–AI work, versioned in Git
How many decisions per hour of work do you make? The answer is a lot. Most of them aren't worth recording. So, the questions that need to be answered in my mind are "What makes this decision worth recording?" and the related "How is having this ADR going to impact what agents actually do in the future?"
Selkirk··on Tasks as Code: Move Your Tickets into the Repository
I guess the benefit would be that agents could catch future or related tasks via the codebase "greps" and could theoretically design toward the future or keep them fresh? Is that worth the obvious downside? Keeping old tasks seems like a bad idea. How do folks address stale tasks without this tight coupling? A stale task description isn't a problem for people, but agents are so literal.
Selkirk··on Superlite: A Faster Alternatie to Superpowers
Interesting observation. Plans are abstractions. The missing model capability is the ability to recognize work at different levels of abstraction, and understand which level of abstraction is called for and to be able to work at multiple levels of abstraction at the same time. The LLM architecture elevator has a bias for down.

Theoretically the value of systems like Superpowers should be regulating bias like this.

Selkirk··on Five months treating bugs like patients and coding agents like a medical team
I really like this writeup. I find the metaphor satisfying, though there's a reason metaphor receded into the bushes as a practice in XP. A great metaphor is great to have, but they don't always exist. Fortunately with organizational systems, things will tend to rhyme. For example, a role that "Verifies that all processes have been followed before anything merges" seems like it could fit many different systems. We're at this fun stage where people are just trying stuff and I love it. I hope we get more info from this experiment.
Selkirk··on Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude
From a user experience standpoint this sounds like a clear win. Congratulations.

With AI safety top of mind so much lately, I can't help but notice the announcement does not address this.

With "Chat" mode, there was a user expectation that session had only limited capability to produce unexpected side effects, read sensitive files, etc.

With "Cowork" mode, it seems like more powerful capabilities have been on by default, requiring deep settings and safety understanding to disable if desired.

Merging modes feels like it is removing a simple and easy to understand risk management tool. How does the combined mode help users understand, manage and feel confident about what risks they are accepting?

Selkirk··on Pion, an agent designed to run any company autonomously
The dashboard for the Andon Market shows a bank balance of around $7k remaining out of the $100k seed. Rent is due at the end of the month. Last EOM brought a $11k-ish drop. Sales do not appear to be on track to cover the rent that's due in two weeks. What then?
Selkirk··on Copper transport drug restores memory and clears toxic Alzheimer's proteins
The linked article is intentionally misleading by omission because they left out "in mice" in the university driven article and they certainly know the relevance and consequences of leaving it out.
Selkirk··on Two computers, one monitor, zero fiddling (2025)
I bought the "right kind of Dell," for this purpose but ddpm is unusable for me as it slams CPU periodically.
Selkirk··on Researchers Asked LLMs for Strategic Advice. They Got "Trendslop" in Return
I'm missing some data to evaluate this article. If you engage a set of humans on these seven tensions, what range of bias do you get?
Selkirk··on Daily multivitamin use may slow biological aging: COSMOS trial results
Multi vitamin use has been studied A LOT with respect to all cause mortality, where it consistently has no statistical effect (or a slightly negative effect). So, to me, "biological aging" seems a way to hack for effects to advertise. Does the average consumer understand that reduced "biological aging" does NOT mean you will live longer? Because if it did, they would be saying THAT. Centrum (study sponsor) is already creating advertising based on this study.
Selkirk··on Daily multivitamin use may slow biological aging: COSMOS trial results
Partially funded by entity related to manufacturer of daily multivitamins. Study was in people over 60 average age 70 if I recall. I didn't care enough to look, but the question I'd ask is how were the people who died during the study accounted for in the "biological aging testing?"
Selkirk··on Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is generic and boring
I have a colleague that recently self-published a book. I can easily tell which parts were LLM driven and which parts represent his own voice. Just like you can tell who's in the next stall in the bathroom at work after hearing just a grunt and a fart. And THAT is a sentence an LLM would not write.
Selkirk··on A verification layer for browser agents: Amazon case study
So ... Test Driven Development?

1. Planner (Write a failing test or tests) 2. Executor (Generate a solution) 3. Verifier (Until the tests no longer fail) 4. Repeat

Selkirk··on Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
Sounds like "Old Masters and Young Geniuses"

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691133805/ol...

That book used artwork valuation as a performance measure and analyzed it over top artist's lifetimes finding two patterns. The "Young Genius" where an artist has a vision and realizes some innovation and their most valuable works center around that with value tapering off over their life. Picasso. (Who had two peaks but still fit the pattern.) Contrast to the "Old Master." This is someone who keeps refining their craft and their most valuable works and innovations are their late life works. Cézanne.

Selkirk··on The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1987) [pdf]
Looks like game theory interaction strategies presented with a bit of color:

Stupid = Spite (lose / lose); Helpless = Altruism (lose / win); Bandit = Selfishness (win / lose); Intelligent = Cooperation (win / win)

The OP "Laws":

Everyone underestimates the number of spiteful individuals in circulation.

The probability that a certain person be spiteful is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

... and so on through ...

A spiteful person is more dangerous than a selfish person.

Selkirk··on NASA found the 18 best plants for naturally filtering the air in your home
Not sure about other chemicals, but carbon seems particularly hopeless. Plants produce CO2 as they respirate and consume it as they photosynthesize. So rather than think in terms of number of plants, think in terms of the weight of the plants (not the dirt). Carbon sequestration is going to have to add net weight to the plants. A human produces 2.3 pounds of CO2 per day. So, how many pounds per day will your crop of carbon scrubbing plants have to increase by in order to sequester that carbon? How much green material by weight do you need to achieve that rate of growth?