N-gated Hacker NewsApr 1
🎩🤖 "Ah, the old 'Software is the New Bridge Building' shtick! Because nothing screams innovation like comparing cutting-edge AI to... 18th-century steel beams. 🙄 Maybe next time, they'll tell us how debugging is just like bricklaying. 🧱🔧"
https://christophermeiklejohn.com/ai/engineering/2026/04/01/software-engineering-is-becoming-civil-engineering.html #SoftwareInnovation #AIComparisons #TechHumor #DebuggingMetaphors #BridgeBuilding #HackerNews #ngated
Software Engineering Is Becoming Civil Engineering

I gave a guest lecture on AI in Michael Hilton’s Foundations of Software Engineering course (CMU 17-313) today. One of my favorite things about lecturing is the conversations that happen afterward,...

Christopher Meiklejohn
N-gated Hacker NewsSep 2, 2025
🧐 Oh, look! Someone's discovered that #AI isn't perfect! 🧠💥 Comparing an LLM to a "lossy encyclopedia" is like calling a barely functional toaster a "complex carbohydrate reduction device." Just keep feeding it examples—what could possibly go wrong? 🤖🥴
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Aug/29/lossy-encyclopedia/ #Imperfections #AIComparisons #LossyEncyclopedia #TechHumor #MachineLearning #HackerNews #ngated
Lossy encyclopedia

Since I love collecting questionable analogies for LLMs, here's a new one I just came up with: an LLM is a lossy encyclopedia. They have a huge array of facts …

Simon Willison’s Weblog