davidhunter's comments

On: Tony Hoare has died

[davidhunter]

There's the Tony Hoare Room [1] in the Robert Hooke Building. We held our Reinforcement Learning reading group there.

[1] https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/jennifer.watson/tonyhoare.htm...

[pbhjpbhj → davidhunter]

>our Reinforcement Learning reading group there //

Anyone else, like me, imagining ML models embodied as Androids attending what amounts to a book club? (I can't quite shake the image of them being little CodeBullets with CRT monitors for heads either.)

[mghackerlady → pbhjpbhj]

The CB reference is appreciated, he isn't talked about enough here

[2001zhaozhao → davidhunter]

I had countless lectures and classes there

On: Self Driving Car Insurance

[davidhunter]

Seems like the role of the human operator in the age of AI is to be the entity they can throw in jail if the machine fails (e.g. driver, pilot)

[taneq → davidhunter]

I’ve said for years that pragmatically, our definition of a “person” is an entity that can accept liability and take blame.

[wcfrobert → taneq]

LLCs can't go to jail though

[amitav1 → wcfrobert]

Because LLCs aren't people

[sroussey → taneq]

Not to be confused with “human” thanks to SCOTUS.

On: AI is a horse (2024)

[davidhunter]

"No, I am not a horse."

Horse rumours denied.

[egeozcan → davidhunter]

That's something a horse pretending to be AI would say.

[Dilettante_ → davidhunter]

*sweats profusely* https://imgur.com/a/PszeiAu

On: iPhone Pocket

[davidhunter]

Top of the market

On: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2025)

[davidhunter]

Optimal | London, UK | ONSITE

Simulation and Control Engineer: Up to £150k + 2% depending on experience.

Full-stack Software Engineer (Python, React): Up to £150k + 2% depending on experience.

Reach out directly to me (founder): david@optimal.ag

Optimal is building agents to control the world’s most critical infrastructure - from factories, to datacenters, to farms.

We are backed by the Director of AI Research at Google DeepMind as well as early VC investors in SpaceX, Anduril, and Palantir.

We have built the world’s most advanced climate control system for high-tech greenhouses and have customers in North America and Europe.

https://www.optimal.ag

On: The Leverage Paradox in AI

[davidhunter]

I’d suggest reading about competitive moats and where they come from. The ability to replicate another’s software does not destroy their moat.

On: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2025)

[davidhunter]

Optimal | London, UK | ONSITE

Backend Software Engineer (Python): Up to £150k + 2% depending on experience.

Optimal builds AI agents to control the world’s critical infrastructure - from factories, to datacenters, to farms.

We are backed by the Director of AI Research at Google DeepMind as well as early VC investors in SpaceX, Anduril, and Palantir.

We have built the world’s most advanced AI control system for high-tech greenhouses and have just signed out first customer contracts in North America and Europe having proven the performance of our AI across 3 seasons in our own demonstration greenhouse.

david@optimal.ag

https://www.optimal.ag

On: Two publishers and three authors fail to understand what "vibe coding" means

[davidhunter]

Anyone else think “vibe coding” is a poor choice of name. Too ambiguous.

Friend of mine suggested “apping”.

I ‘apped’ this in 2 hours vs I ‘vibe coded’ this in 2 hours.

[khedoros1 → davidhunter]

And "apping" isn't even more ambiguous?

[seyebermancer → davidhunter]

“Orchestrated” or “spliced” AOCS - ai orchestrated code splicing. Pronounced awks

I AOCSed that shit together in 2 hours.

Doubles as a play on the awk bash command for text manipulation.

On: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2025)

[davidhunter]

Optimal | London, UK | ONSITE

AI Simulation and Control Engineer: Up to £150k + 2% depending on experience (https://wellfound.com/l/2AUs7A)

Backend Software Engineer (Python): Up to £150k + 2% depending on experience (reach out direct to david@optimal.ag)

Optimal builds AI agents to control the world’s critical infrastructure - from factories, to datacenters, to farms.

We are backed by the Director of AI Research at Google DeepMind as well as early VC investors in SpaceX, Anduril, and Palantir.

We have built the world’s most advanced AI control system for high-tech greenhouses and have just signed out first customer contracts in North America and Europe having proven the performance of our AI across 3 seasons in our own demonstration greenhouse.

david@optimal.ag

https://www.optimal.ag

On: Larry Ellison's half-billion-dollar quest to change farming

[davidhunter]

Bill Gates also lost money on greenhouses [0][1]

[0] https://www.reuters.com/technology/bill-gates-green-tech-fun...

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/03/iron-ox-lays-off-50-amount...