Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner) header
Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner) profile picture

Opinions are my agent's

San Diego, CA
Joined July 2012
Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)Photo by Daniel Kempner (@DanielKempner)
Feedback Box Tweet Words and Phrases: - Activation Energy Barrier - Affordance - Lickliderian
I'm now building an "improvements" feature into all of my personal vibecoded applications: a freeform text input that's hooked up to an agent that yolo implements whatever is submitted. It's an interesting experience -- the activation energy barrier to sanding any rough edge or implementing any new feature becomes extremely low. Someone else who uses one of the applications I created has already implemented 150 improvements over the course of a few days. This pattern feels like a new kind of tool -- liquid software? -- and every application that doesn't have this feature now has a slightly rigid and anachronistic flavor. Why can't I just tell it how I want it to be different? Now, it's not obvious to me how this pattern can or should scale. Does it become unmaintainable after a while? (Maybe model intelligence improvement outstrips my feature appetite such that it's fine?) How does collaborative software work in this model? Can software designed this way be secure and reliable? Whatever the larger questions about broader deployment, it definitely works great in a personal context. It reminds me a little of the visions of Lisp/Lisp machines, Smalltalk, and HyperCard -- systems that the user can take control of and modify. Those visions never quite worked, though: the vast majority of software today is not end-user modifiable in any useful way. So, while this "liquid" affordance is a very small touch, the way it changes one's relation to the software feels a bit transgressive and empowering in a Lickliderian and Engelbartian way.
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I tried speaking like this for 10 words and my face is sore.
We’ve raised $1.3M from YC & Afore Capital so you never have to type or speak again. Typing is slow. Talking into your computer is awkward. Subvocal fixes both Our glasses give you the speed of speech without you making a sound or touching a keyboard. It tracks your internal speech muscles with non-contact sensing and decodes silent, almost invisible mouthing into text at more than 200 words/min. Pre-orders are now live at: subvocal.co/preorder?utm_sou…
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Schizophrenia as a Service
We’ve raised $1.3M from YC & Afore Capital so you never have to type or speak again. Typing is slow. Talking into your computer is awkward. Subvocal fixes both Our glasses give you the speed of speech without you making a sound or touching a keyboard. It tracks your internal speech muscles with non-contact sensing and decodes silent, almost invisible mouthing into text at more than 200 words/min. Pre-orders are now live at: subvocal.co/preorder?utm_sou…
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One of the most melancholy things I’ve ever watched. I don’t think the producer intended it, but this could be a time capsule piece. youtu.be/afHwm12DZcY?is=TS3M…
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Save it or send it. And don’t get me started on Vuori.
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This gentleman proves there are still reasons for human intelligence in the agent world. I never would have thought of this.
Replying to @RhysSullivan
you can make a browser extension that patches ‘human’ to ‘agent’. then the agent just proceeds.
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This coming in as a message instead of a notification must end @singhai.
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Carlitos spiritually belongs in Ocean Beach.
👋🏻 SHANGHAI! 👨🏻
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Feels like I’m living in San Diego-Dade County.
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OH at Costco Carlsbad: “AI scares the shit out of me.”
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Canadians are hereby banned from saying "flag".
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Why is CVS so thirsty to give me a flu shot? Are they in some kind of pizza party competition at their school?
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“Rights” in Spanish is “derechos”? You gotta be kidding me…
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If you think about it, they should've stopped teaching arithmetic in school around 2015.
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K-shaped AI psychosis.
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Rich for decades is an awesome comeback.
Replying to @LondonJazzBass
I know the cognitive dissonance is haunting you, but I've been rich for decades. Don't need a handout from the labs. I'm just excited about the intelligence explosion. Like I was about the Internet and Ruby.
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To Whom It May Concern (AI Safety Researchers)
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The ATP cycle is like the gnarliest bit of legacy code in your codebase that you simply do not touch.
the surprise conclusion of the machine consciousness debate will be that people are machines.
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Why should my kid be playing with a crinkly book when they could be learning Python?
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