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fluoridationtoday at 3:27 AM2 repliesview on HN

It's because code isn't a way to communicate ideas, it's a way to specify behavior. Text, drawings, video, and music are means for brains to connect with each other. When you read or view or listen to something generated you're not connecting with any other brain. No idea has been transmitted to you. The feeling is analogous to speaking on the phone and only realizing several minutes later that the call was dropped. It's a feeling that combines betrayal, being made to waste time, and alienation.


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dwdtoday at 4:19 AM

I tend to disagree that code can't be a way to communicate an idea. Sure, I might struggle to edict an emotion in the reader (excluding confusion or frustration) but I feel it is a way to describe ideas, model constructs and processes, etc.

With AI-generated text where there is this disconnect between the audience and the prompter who has an idea but not the skill to express it. Would you say reading an English translation of Dostoevsky is similar because you're connecting with the interpreter rather than the actual author? Or something as simple as an Asterix comic where the English translation is rarely literal but uses different English plays on words?

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rustystumptoday at 4:02 AM

No, code is a way of communicating ideas, or more correctly information. All languages convey information. All languages convey ideas.

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