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Sorting and Searching
Personal blog · sortingsearching.comprogrammingmath
Sorting and Searching is a personal blog at sortingsearching.com about programming and math. Since 2020, 6 different Hacker News readers have linked it 9 times, most often “General human-level artificial intelligence is in our future”. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for posts arguing that AI is mathematically impossible, based on computability and Penrose's argument. Commenters debate that thesis, and one credits the author as a known HN contributor.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A blog about interesting algorithms and data structures.
Most-linked posts?
- General human-level artificial intelligence is in our future2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-07-18
What Hacker News says?
Penrose did this argument better.[1] Penrose has been making that argument for thirty years, and it played better before AI started getting good. AI via LLMs has limitations, but they don't come from computability. [1] https://sortingsearching.com/2021/07/18/roger-penrose-ai-ske...
Comment linking /2021/07/18/roger-penrose-ai-skepticism.html
on “AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns”Submitted Faster than radix sort: Kirkpatrick-Reisch sorting as a story · 193 points
HN discussionYes. Anything with finite memory is not Turing-complete, and transformers are finite-state machines. So what? Anything with infinite memory is un-buildable. Yes, there's a school of philosophy that claims that AI cannot be built with digital hardware because it needs infinite state. Penrose is the leading exponent of this argument.[1] This isn't taken too seriously any more, now that finite machines are doing so wel…
Comment linking /2021/07/18/roger-penrose-ai-skepticism.html
on “Turing Complete Transformers: Two Transformers Are More Powerful Than One”Submitted How fast can we sort? (2015) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSide note: looking at submission author - whoa, the legendary Tomek Czajka ( https://sortingsearching.com/about/ ). Welcome to HN :)
Comment linking /about/
on “Need a PRNG? Use a CSPRNG”Submitted General human-level artificial intelligence is in our future as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Zero to the Power of Zero as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Need a PRNG? Use a CSPRNG as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Pick a Hash Function as a story · 1 points
HN discussion