Hacker Timesnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> If you weren't able to build it before then you aren't able to properly verify it

GP said "couldn't dream of building". To make an analogy, I wouldn't dream of building a house if I had to do every bit of brick-laying myself. But with others doing what I can't do, I can indeed dream of building a house and I do know how to verify that the house was built to satisfy my dream.



This analogy is ironic to me. For most people, building a dream house and verifying it means hiring someone else who is accountable for it being built to code etc.

This is exactly the naive gap that is happening with AI. There is no trusted middleman who does the verification and takes the burden of accountability. The AI vendor tries to sell it like magic but with a disclaimer that is is merely entertainment. The user tries to pretend they are reviewing, but often is just implicitly trusting the tool to do right by them on things they have no real capacity to evaluate.


> There is no trusted middleman who does the verification and takes the burden of accountability.

It's a great example of a project that needs accountability, but there's also thousands of other projects that need absolutely no accountability.

It's all relative to the stakes. The lower the stakes the less informed verification is needed.

The real trick is being informed enough on the boundaries to know where it matters. In the construction analogy, you need to be informed enough to know that a house is a bad idea since there are safety concerns. However building something small and non-load-bearing is probably fine to "vibe".

Eg there's no expertise needed to judge a garden trellis or 2 foot picket fence. It either works or it doesn't, and if it fails down the road there's no harm.

This boundary knowledge is the important bit imo.


A house is a good analogy here. You can verify that a house is built to satisfy your dream. You can't likely verify that a house won't collapse in the middle of the night or during a storm/quake/etc. Once no human understands how the house is built anymore, we will need other ways to verify that or just trust it's done right.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: