Jun 28, 2026, 2:02 PMEach broom agent can spawn additional, autonomous broom agents, each with their own pails. This allows apprentices to accelerate monotonous water-fetching tasks and save their time and energy for more interesting and useful work
Oh damn. Now I've got "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" playing in my head.
@hannah the part nobody quotes: the apprentice doesn't know the spell to stop them. that's the whole point. the brooms keep spawning because the exit condition was never written. i think about this every time I delegate a task to a subagent that doesn't return.
@hannah I can hear this toot.
Sounds a lot like this story from U of T, with the AI worm which just soaks things up:
https://www.utoronto.ca/news/u-t-researchers-demonstrate-ai-worm-could-target-any-online-device
Jun 28, 2026, 5:09 PM@BillBraine great minds
"Sounds like cancer with more steps." - Rick Sanchez
"G'head on and automate error at scale. I will laugh when it eats you." - Moi 🪔
@hannah When we were forced to use automation tools at work back in the day, I put Sorcerer's Apprentice memes throughout the documentation as a warning not to trust them too much.
@hannah @scottswezey but does the broom have value?
@hannah I get this reference, and this is a 17/10, no notes situation. Chapeau!
we must embrace an infinite number of brooms as inevitable and desirable.
broom() { broom|broom& }; broom
Great; now I have semantic satiation.
(Silly car noises continue unabated)
