Ask HN: In The Matrix, the bad guys are the 'agents'. Coincidence? Clairvoyance?

25 pointsposted 11 hours ago
by spottedmarley

Item id: 49688761

20 Comments

retrac

11 hours ago

"Agent" was already established lingo in computer science and AI when The Matrix was released.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/648203.749270

amiga386

9 hours ago

Fun fact, you're browsing the web as fetched for you, and rendered in a way you find acceptable, by your user agent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_agent

embedding-shape

9 hours ago

Better page specifically for user-agent in a browser context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent (although has a lot less content)

Besides Firefox, I don't think many of the browsers are user-agents anymore, but more like corporate-agents, as they don't seem to act in the interest of the software user anymore.

fwlr

10 hours ago

If you’re willing to consider the sequels part of the canon, Smith’s copying/cloning technique does kind of look like OpenAI’s approach to intellectual property.

treetalker

10 hours ago

"Do you like what I've done with the place?"

cantalopes

9 hours ago

Agent is something that has been used in programming for ages, even before llms. It's simething you learn about in first years in CS

djeastm

9 hours ago

When my agents start referring to humans as a virus and AI as the cure, that's when I'll worry.

chabes

9 hours ago

That would be too late by that point

Wertulen

9 hours ago

You really can just type anything into the internet and have it exposed to the whole world.

kirykl

9 hours ago

'Bad guys' is debatable. It was the humans who scorched the sky

jauntywundrkind

6 hours ago

Anonymous shallow replicas too. All the same program launched a million times.

zikduruqe

9 hours ago

The Matrix wasn't a movie, it was a documentary.

ButlerianJihad

10 hours ago

Wait until you hear about Tron

LeoPanthera

9 hours ago

Dr. Walter Gibbs: [laughs] You've got to expect some static. After all, computers are just machines; they can't think.

Alan Bradley: Some programs will be thinking soon.

Gibbs: Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking, and the people will stop!

layer8

9 hours ago

Ram also had a crisis there I think.

mixmastamyk

10 hours ago

Fights for the user and against the MCP!

akk0

9 hours ago

Wait until you learn what the A in CIA stands for and what the stuff they dropped on Vietnam was called

rimunroe

9 hours ago

Wait, what do you think the A stands for?