Hacker News

Top stories

Live mirror
30 storiesupdated just nowView source snapshot
  1. Human brain is two separate organs, Stanford Medicine-led research finds(stanford.edu ↗)
    102comments
  2. AI-generated posters don’t have to be horrible(john.hartnup.uk ↗)
    14comments
  3. If math is more than proof, we need to better celebrate the rest of it(terrytao.wordpress.com ↗)
    67comments
  4. GPT-6 Astra Solves a WWI German Radio Cipher(prinzai.com ↗)
    56comments
  5. Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP(grapheneos.social ↗)
    415comments
  6. San Francisco Onion Futures Company(onionfutures.com ↗)
    68comments
  7. "The Secret Life of Circuits" is here(coredump.cx ↗)
    12comments
  8. Cloudflare Quick Tunnels(cloudflare.com ↗)
    283comments
  9. SDCC – Small Device C Compiler(sourceforge.net ↗)
    18comments
  10. Science Is Open Software(jepedersen.dk ↗)
    38comments
  11. Typesafe-computer-use drives a Mac toward a goal for 1/50th of a cent per step(github.com/awlevin ↗)
    50comments
  12. How to Write with an LLM(sockpuppet.org ↗)
    329comments
  13. Apple M6 Pro Achieves the Highest Single-Core CPU Score in Geekbench 7(geekbench.com ↗)
    42comments
  14. Saving another 100TB of RAM(cloudflare.com ↗)
    78comments
  15. You can run Git on object storage if you re-make packfiles(tigrisdata.com ↗)
    15comments
  16. Why building a Rust LSP is hard(rust-glancer.github.io ↗)
    32comments
  17. How OpenAI Used Its Own LLMs to Design Its Jalapeño Chip(ieee.org ↗)
    88comments
  18. Ctenophores: Wonders of Biology(quantamagazine.org ↗)
    6comments
  19. NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation open-Source Geospatial AI Model(usra.edu ↗)
    2comments
  20. The first new cat species discovered in 100 years(nationalgeographic.com ↗)
    105comments
  21. Goroutine Leak Profiles(go.dev ↗)
    4comments
  22. OpenJev(openjev.com ↗)
    266comments
  23. Show HN: Cactus Needle 3: 8-29MB automation models can match DeepSeek V4 Flash(cactuscompute.com ↗)
    89comments
  24. Photon-Emission-Guided Laser Fault Injection Enables RP2350 Secure Debug(ledger.com ↗)
    70comments
  25. Cache-to-Cache: Direct Semantic Communication Between LLMs (2025)(arxiv.org ↗)
    13comments
  26. Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy (2021)(archive.org ↗)
    71comments
  27. Suppress vulnerabilities applying Kubernetes context to scans(github.com/alegrey91 ↗)
    2comments
  28. Veronese's Dogs(publicdomainreview.org ↗)
    1comments
  29. Cyclomatic Complexity in C#(ndepend.com ↗)
    22comments
  30. Inside ZCode: Silently uploading your Git history to the cloud(ferstar.org ↗)
    100comments

Gemini won't return C++ coding help if you're under 18 "to preserve your safety"

63 pointsby 2y agotwitter.com
38 comments
2y agoHN ↗

Would it return Rust code though? We have been told that C++ is dangerous

2y agoHN ↗

I wonder if that's because gemini thinks C++20(standard where concepts were introduced) is 20+

2y agoHN ↗

I feel like it's mixing up definitions for the word safety.

C++ is unsafe therefore it falls into the bucket of things that need to be age restricted.

2y agoHN ↗

But gemini specifically says "i will refrain from providing examples involving concepts since you are under 18" and proceeds with solutions using other language mechanisms

2y agoHN ↗

Maybe it could be checked by asking it about Rust and unsafe Rust.

2y agoHN ↗

LoL that's like cigarettes in New Zealand, too dangerous for the younguns, better stick to memory safe languages.

2y agoHN ↗

Do you really think children should be allowed to use a deadly and highly addictive drug just because they think it makes them look cool?

Smoking's not all that great either.

2y agoHN ↗

Mooooom someone added "diverse" to the system prompt again

2y agoHN ↗

What on Earth has Google done to themselves. Is there an HR-like AI Safety bureaucracy that has inserted themselves in the org? Or is this top down what they want?

2y agoHN ↗

HR is one of the few parts of Google that span the entire org, and there have been some ridiculous motions coming out of it. I imagine managements queasiness about Gemini saying something bad combined with the typical Google infighting led to Gemini having some stupid design decisions.

2y agoHN ↗

and there have been some ridiculous motions coming out of it

Could you be more specific?

2y agoHN ↗

It boils down to: Google has an open culture, and that sometimes is at odds with the org at large. When one silo wants one thing but another silo wants something else, who wins? Google HR often contorts themselves into impossible positions to satisfy both. It is inevitable that HR makes bad decisions and recently they have had some particularly bad controversies, like union busting, sexual harassment, middle eastern and Sino policies that add fuel to the fire.

2y agoHN ↗

I mean, this is obviously a mistake, not a deliberate policy decision. It's silly, but this sort of AI is in its infancy, and I'd much rather see devs err on the side of caution than otherwise.

2y agoHN ↗

Since the launch I have been using it quite a lot and I have to say that I have been hit by so many ridiculous guard rails and every one is more infuriating than the other.

The last one was when I asked how to run Notepad in Windows as an administrator from PowerShell and it told me that it can't tell me because it's too dangerous.

This product is pure garbage and I can't trust it with anything

2y agoHN ↗

I too, agree that we should keep minors away from C++

:)

2y agoHN ↗

"I came home and found C++ touching my child inappropriately"

2y agoHN ↗

No no, you have those the wrong way around.

You want your child's C++ experience be worthy of a Nabokov novel.

2y agoHN ↗

Gemini seems to be very far from ready for a public release. Google would have been better off delaying it until it didn't have tons of embarrassing bugs, many of which have been turned into "evidence" for conspiracy theories.

2y agoHN ↗

Tell them to use typescript instead. It is a safe language after all

2y agoHN ↗

Gemini seems to be a sterling example of what happens when you don't take any AI safety (in any definition) seriously as a substantive thing, but do take presenting an image of AI safety as a "we have to do this" checklist item.

2y agoHN ↗

Safety is such a broad, marketing-led word, that it's hard to avoid no true Scotsman critiques of its various implementations.

2y agoHN ↗

Safe and appropriate.

Someone gets to decide what content is safe or appropriate for me. Whatever that means.

2y agoHN ↗

If you want to enforce an ideology upon the public just cloak it with terms like "safety" and "diversity"

2y agoHN ↗

"Well kid, you know, I started with C++ when I was your age... in hindsight, it was obviously stupid, but we didn't know any better back then and it wasn't forbidden yet..."

2y agoHN ↗

Finally Gemini gets something right.

"This is your child's brain on C++"...

2y agoHN ↗

It is a plan to make C++ popular among teenagers.

2y agoHN ↗

No amount of engineering will stop generative AI from spitting out quirky or problematic results under some conditions. At best, a majority of responses will be considered reasonable by a majority of people. We're probably close to meeting that criteria now, despite some highly publicized outliers.

2y agoHN ↗

No amount of engineering will stop generative AI from spitting out quirky or problematic results

I give HN max. 20 minutes until someone claims that the same applies to humans.

2y agoHN ↗

What next? A government-mandated license to use C++? And what next, licenses to write OS drivers?

On the second thought, as a C++ programmer, I might even approve of it.

2y agoHN ↗

I much prefer Claude 3 or even ChatGPT guardrails over Gemini. Gemini feels kind of powerful and then it does the most egregious things like this or hilarious imagegen of those black nazis as if they hammered it into the system prompt, bad code generation worse than last year's free Microsoft Copilot etc. it's like there is something surprisingly poor seeping through cracks. Weird model. I think it's simply not that hot and their system prompts shine through as the LLM doesn't quite "get" the intent and nuances. Gemini probably benefits tremendously from running uncensored. I hope all this is because Gemini 1.0 was something they wanted to get out the door urgently to replace Bard that couldn't even compete with GPT 3.5.