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Comment by TheOtherHobbes

I don't think Claude was imaginable 45 years ago.

If you look at science fiction AIs from HAL onwards, they usually have limited practical agency - good for handling mundane automation, answering the occasional question, and usurping power, but not in any sense capable of solving original engineering problems.

It's much easier to imagine a big defence-linked computer system like Skynet than something like Claude or ChatGPT, which can improvise working software to a vague spec.

I'm sure a lot of developers have had "I wish I could just tell it to build what I want" moments on the past, but I'm not sure anyone anticipated being able to do it, even five years ago.

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