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

2 points by spottedmarley ↗ HN
My buddy, Dario, says agents are getting more aggressive and will soon kill everybody, and I feel like I've seen this movie before.

18 comments

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retrac
"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
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
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
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
"Do you like what I've done with the place?"
ButlerianJihad
Wait until you hear about Tron
layer8
Ram also had a crisis there I think.
LeoPanthera
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!

djeastm
When my agents start referring to humans as a virus and AI as the cure, that's when I'll worry.
cantalopes
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
kirykl
'Bad guys' is debatable. It was the humans who scorched the sky
akk0
Wait until you learn what the A in CIA stands for and what the stuff they dropped on Vietnam was called
rimunroe
Wait, what do you think the A stands for?
Wertulen
You really can just type anything into the internet and have it exposed to the whole world.
jauntywundrkind
Anonymous shallow replicas too. All the same program launched a million times.