Have you ever heard about the Immortal Snail?
asserted
you → hear → Snail
It’s an intermittently popular internet meme that goes something like this:
You’re offered 10 million dollars.
asserted
You → ’ → dollars
What’s the catch?
asserted
What → ’ → ?
A snail will spend the rest of eternity trying to track you down.
asserted
snail → spend → you
That’s its only goal in life.
asserted
That → ’ → life
If it touches you, it kills you.
asserted
it → touch → you
But otherwise, it just moves as slowly as a regular snail.
asserted
it → move → snail
So, do you take the deal?
asserted
you → take → deal
“This is the dumbest hypothetical question ever,” said one of the co-hosts of the Rooster Teeth podcast, which introduced the meme in 2014.
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which → say → 2014
It’s dumb because there’s nowhere near enough information to answer the question.
asserted
It → ’ → question
For instance, can the snail swim?
asserted
snail → swim → instance
(Otherwise, you could just move to Hawaii.)
uncertain
you → move → Hawaii
Does it move monotonically toward your current location, taking the shortest route as recommended by Google Maps: Snail Edition?
asserted
it → move → Edition
Or can it engage in some degree of strategic planning?
asserted
it → engage → planning
Can you capture it in a jar?
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you → capture → jar
Apart from immortality, what other special powers does it have?
asserted
it → have → powers
The various authors of Immortal Snail memes don’t necessarily agree on these parameters.
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authors → agree → parameters
But a Reddit post that reintroduced the Immortal Snail in 2016 described the snail as “super intelligent.”1
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that → reintroduce → snail
This seems like a rather important detail.
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This → seem → detail
What every version of the meme agrees upon is that while the snail is slow, it’s also what you might call “superpersistent”.
uncertain
you → agree → what
It can’t die; it won’t be deterred.
asserted
it → die → ?
I’d still happily take my chances with the infernal thing if it just stupidly crawls along at snail speed — about 0.03 miles per hour — toward your current location.
asserted
it → take → location
But what about a superintelligent, superpersistent snail that can anticipate your routine — Nate often has poker night on Mondays — evade detection, and coordinate with other snails that might act as decoys?
uncertain
that → anticipate → decoys
I’d have to plan my whole life around that thing.
asserted
I → have → thing
You can probably see where I’m going with this.
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I → see → this
AI is getting much smarter — and much more persistent
There are still times when AI tools can be frustrating.
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tools → get → ?
But there are more and more days when it feels like we’re living in the singularity.
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we → be → singularity
I had a lot on my plate.
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I → have → plate
Our midterms model needed another patch because of continued weirdness in Alaska.
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model → need → Alaska
And our NFL model wasn’t quite ready yet, with the season only eight days away from starting.
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model → start → season
But I handled the Alaska issue by recoding FLIPR by speaking to ChatGPT on my phone while getting out of the subway, and sent the new version of the model to Eli a few minutes later.
asserted
I → handle → Eli
Then while at the gym, I had ChatGPT rewrite the code our NFL model uses to apply the league’s complex tiebreaking procedures.
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model → have → procedures
This task is almost ideally suited for LLMs — purely algorithmic, no judgment involved.
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judgment → suit → LLMs
Still, what took me two painful days last year, ChatGPT solved in about 15 minutes.
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ChatGPT → take → minutes
All of this without my opening a laptop or touching a keyboard.
asserted
my → open → keyboard
These sorts of minor miracles are happening more and more often.
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sorts → happen → miracles
I’ve put in hundreds of hours since March working on a series of statistical models for Silver Bulletin: first, COOPER (NCAA basketball), then
asserted
I → put → Bulletin
That all of this took so much of my time might not sound like the best advertisement for AI.
uncertain
took → take → AI
Don’t get me wrong: we’re probably still a ways away from when a one-shot prompt on Claude or ChatGPT will be able to build a complex Silver Bulletin-type model on its own.
asserted
prompt → get → own
Indeed, “vibecoding” feels like a misnomer in this context.
asserted
vibecoding → feel → context
…and 187 more, not listed.
The Aporia
