Honestly, I'm curious how far you've delved into Abstract Expressionism, or more specifically, the subset of it that was trendy in NYC 75ish years ago when a lot of the art community there started literally throwing paint around to let the randomness of those throws be part of their creative process?

Because the questions are similar. Is randomly throwing paint art? If you get good enough at it that you control exactly where the pain lands, does that make it more artistic? Or less? If the core meaning of the art is the lack of control, how do you deal with that when your technique becomes controlled?

At the end of the day, is your code a tool that produces art, or is the code itself is the art and the outputs are just the equivalent of selling prints instead of originals.

Either way, if AI is doing both the code and the outputs, it feels like you crossed a line where you are no longer an artist, you are a crafter. Now, that opens up a whole different line of questioning - Does it matter? Is your goal to engage with the academic art community and to get your works in museums? Or are you just having fun creating imagery and making some money by doing so? In many ways, being a crafter instead of an artist puts you in a much larger community, and one that is less worried about anything other than enjoying the process and the results of their efforts.

So is it art? Is it craft? Is it kitsch? Does your audience even care what label we put on it? Do you?

> Is randomly throwing paint art?

According to wikipedia, art is a range of human activity, that provides an audience a worthwhile experience (emotional, thinking, beauty)

So if randomly thrown paint made you think, that would be art.

True.

I'm not going to worry about that, though. Sometimes life is better when you don't nitpick at every detail, and just enjoy the ride. And the overall article is about exactly that, so I'll forgive the author for letting the mythology seep into reality a bit.

I personally am allergic to journalists misrepresenting fiction as fact

I agree with that, too, but I found this to be more of a creative essay, not journalism.

The details are definitely fuzzy when you talk to people. At the same time, the sentiment is fairly solid. People do not like AI. They do like food. A farm may use more water, but people want the output of the farm. They don't want the output of the data centers.

That being said, your part of Utah is definitely one of the places were the arguments break down. The actual food production there is minimal. I'm not sure exactly where you are at, but the northern side of the Salt Lake is fairly desolate, and getting moreso. If there was any place where people would be OK with it, you'd think that would be it.

The natural gas burning is a real concern, though. Utah has massive capacity for solar, and when looking down towards Millard county and south of there, geothermal energy. Setting this up as a natural gas fueled data center is a questionable strategy.

In case anyone actually wants to debunk this, here is the problem with this argument:

They say fossil fuels only add 4% to the atmosphere. True, or at least, we'll accept it for the purposes of the argument because that number does not matter. Their argument assumes that 4% is meaningless. It is not. It is adding 4% to a closed loop ecosystem. This is not a one-time 4% fluctuation, it is a permanent 4% addition to a closed system. That is not trivial. That is not negligible.

My guess is that they are considering only the atmosphere, but the real dilution must consider also the carbon stored in the ocean/wood/others.

If one carbon 13 atom is added to the atmosphere, after a while some of it exchanged 1 to 1 with carbon 14 trapped in wood, but the net result is that there is one more carbon in the atmosphere.

I prefer the right click menu to work like normal over them overriding it so it doesn't work.

There's a million ways to already explore these artifacts. A silly game to mess about with them isn't a bad thing

Yet look at the ones that gain traction. In general, LLM-created content is unpopular, even on HN. However, using LLMs to aggregate, visualize, and synthesize content is popular. Likewise, when those types of functions are done against HN itself, like the last few days, it go to the top of the site.

Which tells me that people still highly value a personal connection to anything online. It also tells me that people don't want original content from AI - they want original perspectives on existing content.

Yes. I work on legacy systems where the training data was minimal. The code that I get back from the LLMs is confused - it pulls objects and methods from other languages, makes up APIs that don't exist, etc. It also doesn't understand the bigger picture of what all is possible in the system, so it gives me over-engineered code that could be done really simply using other tools.

I think many of us don't worry about whether someone answers us in a thread. Fretting over how a thread went after you said your piece doesn't improve the goal of HN: curiosity. If people agree with your comment, there is no need to jump back in. If they disagree and you jump back in, it just feeds arguments. When you do say something, do it because you feel you have something worthwhile that adds to the conversation. Do not comment just to promote your own voice. And once you have said something, move on.

Generally I agree with you. I've said my bit, you disagreed, we move on. My goal is not to change your mind it's merely to offer a different point of view.

In some cases though the reply opens the door to a wider exploration. The poster may make a valid argument or might add nuance which is meaningful. I've found some dialogs offer me a different point of view and my position doesn't necessarily change, but understanding becomes deeper.

But yes, a lot of people's positions are tribal and buried too deep in psyche to be easily changed. Our positions on most things are not based on facts, or at best cherry-picking facts that support our view of the world.

Do you want to play the VC game? Where you push for high growth, whether or not that is what makes sense for the business? Where failure is preferred over growing into a small sustainable business?

Because if you answer to that is "No", then you should not apply, no matter who you are. YC plays a very specific game. It is not the best game if your goal is to build a company. It is the game to play if you want a high-risk, high-reward experience where a small handful of people get rich, while most other people do not.

Some people want to play that game. If you are one of them, apply. I have no idea if the odds favor you or not, but I guarantee you will not get accepted if you don't apply.

At the same time, if you choose not to apply, or do not get in, don't worry about it. Many people have no interest in that path, and lead quite fulfilling lives being completely outsiders to all of it.

> At the same time, if you choose not to apply, or do not get in, don't worry about it.

Not only that, but rest assured that while YC is pretty good at what it does, it still has a very high false negative rate, and plenty of companies that it passes on will go on to succeed. See https://www.bvp.com/about#anti-portfolio for a VC that talks about the companies it passed on. My favorite:

> Incredibly, Bessemer passed on Federal Express seven times.

Typically, that would be a reason to close the browser tab and not post it.