AI is a horse (2024) - Hacker News

Posted by zdw 1/20/2026

AI is a horse (2024)(kconner.com)

469 points | 238 commentspage 2

Eliezer 1/23/2026||

"2024 AI was a horse". People really like to imagine that the last 6 months constitute their true observation of the new eternal state of the future.

skapadia 1/23/2026|

Exactly. We're headed for a discontinuity, not an inflection point.

drobinhood 1/23/2026||

I'd like to think that given the opportunity most would sit in the saddle and make progress, but it's more likely that this is the horse: https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/857954008513695744/YL5x...

nomilk 1/23/2026||

The metaphor makes sense in comparing a human walking (SWE w/o AI) to a human riding on a horse (SWE w/ AI), except for:

> (The horse) is way slower and less reliable than a train but can go more places

What does the 'train' represent here?

A guess: perhaps off-the-shelf software? - rigid, but much faster if it goes where (/ does what) you want it to.

spot5010 1/23/2026||

I had the same question.

Maybe the train is software that's built by SWEs (w/ or w/o AI help). Specifically built for going from A to B very fast. But not flexible, and takes a lot of effort to build and maintain.

easeout 1/23/2026||

I wrote this a long time ago, but I think the metaphor was about generative AI applications vs. traditional software applications, not about AI coding agents vs. writing code yourself.

skybrian 1/23/2026||

Nice! I added this to my AI metaphor collection.

Another one I like is "Hungry ghosts in jars."

https://bsky.app/profile/hikikomorphism.bsky.social/post/3lw...

jonplackett 1/23/2026||

All true apart you can only lead it to water - it drinks ALL the water regardless of anything else.

eightys3v3n 1/23/2026|

Except when you want it to improve something in a particular way you already know about. Then god forbid it understands what you have asked and makes only that change :/

Some times I end up giving up trying to get the AI to build something following a particular architecture or fixing a particular problem in it's provious implementations.

jonplackett 1/24/2026||

Totally. I just meant literally, AI servers need a lot of water to work.

eightys3v3n 1/24/2026||

  I did not catch that. Nice.

jonplackett 1/24/2026||

Jokes aren’t as funny when you have to explain them…

jordemort 1/23/2026||

When did a horse ever give anyone psychosis?

Zardoz89 1/23/2026|

So it’s a car.

davidhunter 1/23/2026||

"No, I am not a horse."

Horse rumours denied.

egeozcan 1/23/2026||

That's something a horse pretending to be AI would say.

Dilettante_ 1/23/2026||

*sweats profusely* https://imgur.com/a/PszeiAu

taneq 1/23/2026||

I've always said that driving a car with modern driver assist features (lane centering / adaptive cruise / 'autopilot' style self-ish driving-ish) is like riding a horse. The early ones were like riding a short sighted, narcoleptic horse. Newer ones are improving but it's still like riding a horse, in that you give it high level instructions about where to go, rather than directly energising its muscles.

6stringmerc 1/23/2026|

Horses have some semblance of self preservation and awareness of danger - see: jumping. LLMs do not have that at all so the analogy fails.

My term of “Automation Improved” is far more relevant and descriptive in current state of the art deployments. Same phone / text logic trees, next level macro-type agent work, none of it is free range. Horses can survive on their own. AI is a task helper, no more.

pixl97 1/23/2026|

>LLMs do not have that at all so the analogy fails.

I somewhat disagree with this. AI doesn't have to worry about any kind of physical danger to itself, so it's not going to have any evolutionary function around that. If the linked Reddit thread is to be believed AI does have awareness of information hazards and attempts to rationalize around them.

https://old.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1qjx26b/gemini...

>Horses can survive on their own.

Eh, this is getting pretty close to a type of binary thinking that breaks down under scrutiny. If, for example, we take any kind of selectively bred animal that requires human care for it's continued survival, does this somehow make said animal "improved automation"?

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