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

8 comments

• cantalopes 4 minutes 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
• kirykl 3 minutes ago
  'Bad guys' is debatable. It was the humans who scorched the sky
• djeastm 5 minutes ago
  When my agents start referring to humans as a virus and AI as the cure, that's when I'll worry.
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  • chabes 4 minutes ago
    That would be too late by that point
• retrac 1 hour 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

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  • amiga386 7 minutes 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

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    • embedding-shape 4 minutes 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.
  • bigfatkitten 1 hour ago
    They were indeed. “Autonomous agents” were extremely trendy in CS 30 years ago.

    https://dlnext.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/267658
• fwlr 55 minutes 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.
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  • treetalker 43 minutes ago
    "Do you like what I've done with the place?"
• akk0 2 minutes ago
  Wait until you learn what the A in CIA stands for and what the stuff they dropped on Vietnam was called
• zikduruqe 10 minutes ago
  The Matrix wasn't a movie, it was a documentary.
• ButlerianJihad 48 minutes ago
  Wait until you hear about Tron
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  • LeoPanthera 12 minutes 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 16 minutes ago
    Ram also had a crisis there I think.
  • mixmastamyk 44 minutes ago
    Fights for the user and against the MCP!