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Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

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Re: Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

#161

Post by ethmarks »

cheema33 wrote: post #87
jstummbillig wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because nobody actually wants a "web app". People want food, love, sex or: solutions. You or your coworker are not a web app. You can do some of the things that web apps can, and many things that a web app can't, but neither is because of the modality. Coded determinism is hard for many problems and I find it entirely plausible that it could turn out to be the wrong approach in software, that is designed to solve som…

> Average humans are pretty great at solving a certain class of complex problems that we tried to tackle unsuccessfully with many millions lines of deterministic code.. Are you suggesting that an average user would want to precisely describe in detail what they want, every single time, instead of clicking on a link that gives them what they want?

No, but the average user is capable of describing what they want to something trained in interpreting what users want. The average person is incapable of articulating the exact steps necessary to change a car's oil, but they have no issue with saying "change my car's oil" to a mechanic. The implicit assumption with LLM-based backends is that the LLM would be capable of correctly interpreting vague user requests. Otherwise it wouldn't be very useful.

Re: Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

#163

Post by Finbarr »

samrolken wrote: post #159
Finbarr wrote: post #109

If you added a few more tools that let the LLM modify code files that would directly serve requests, that would significantly speed up future responses and also ensure consistency. Code would act like memory. A direct HTTP request to the LLM is like a cache miss. You could still have the feedback mechanism allowing a bypass that causes an update to the code. Perhaps code just becomes a store of consistency for LLMs o…

This was an unserious experiment meant to illustrate the gap and bottlenecks that are still there. I agree that there's a lot that could be done to optimize this kind of approach. But even if you did, I'm not sure the results would be viable and I'm pretty sure classic coding (with LLM assistance and all) would still outperform such a product.

I found it thought provoking and interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

#164

Post by Finbarr »

hartator wrote: post #145
Finbarr wrote: post #109

If you added a few more tools that let the LLM modify code files that would directly serve requests, that would significantly speed up future responses and also ensure consistency. Code would act like memory. A direct HTTP request to the LLM is like a cache miss. You could still have the feedback mechanism allowing a bypass that causes an update to the code. Perhaps code just becomes a store of consistency for LLMs o…

You should try making this.

I'm tempted to!

Re: Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

#165

Post by DanHulton »

You can build this today exactly as efficiently as you can when inference is 1000x faster, because the only things you can build with this is things that absolutely don't matter. The first bored high schooler who realizes that there's an LLM between them and the database is going to WRECK you.

Re: Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

#166

Post by feifan »

DanHulton wrote: post #165

You can build this today exactly as efficiently as you can when inference is 1000x faster, because the only things you can build with this is things that absolutely don't matter. The first bored high schooler who realizes that there's an LLM between them and the database is going to WRECK you.

this assumes the application is hosted as SaaS, but if the application makes sense as a personal/"desktop" app, that likely wouldn't matter.

Re: Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

#167

Post by majormajor »

jstummbillig wrote: post #48
sunaurus wrote: post #20

The question posed sounds like "why should we have deterministic behavior if we can have non-deterministic behavior instead?" Am I wrong to think that the answer is obvious? I mean, who wants web apps to behave differently every time you interact with them?

Because nobody actually wants a "web app". People want food, love, sex or: solutions. You or your coworker are not a web app. You can do some of the things that web apps can, and many things that a web app can't, but neither is because of the modality. Coded determinism is hard for many problems and I find it entirely plausible that it could turn out to be the wrong approach in software, that is designed to solve som…

Companies want determinism. And for most things, people want predictability. We've spent a century turning people into robots for customer support, assembly lines, etc. Very few parts of everyday life that still boil down to "make a deal with the person you're talking to."

So even if it would be better to have more flexibility, most business won't want it.

Re: Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

#168

Post by sarchertech »

ethmarks wrote: post #161
cheema33 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Average humans are pretty great at solving a certain class of complex problems that we tried to tackle unsuccessfully with many millions lines of deterministic code.. Are you suggesting that an average user would want to precisely describe in detail what they want, every single time, instead of clicking on a link that gives them what they want?

No, but the average user is capable of describing what they want to something trained in interpreting what users want. The average person is incapable of articulating the exact steps necessary to change a car's oil, but they have no issue with saying "change my car's oil" to a mechanic. The implicit assumption with LLM-based backends is that the LLM would be capable of correctly interpreting vague user requests. Othe…

The average mechanic won’t do something completely different to your car because you added some extra filler words to your request though.

The average user may not care exactly what the mechanic does to fix your car, but they do expect things to be repeatable. If car repair LLMs function anything like coding LLMs, one request could result in an oil change, while a similar request could end up with an engine replacement.

Re: Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

#169

Post by ethmarks »

sramam wrote: post #104
ychen306 wrote: post #74

It's orders of magnitude cheaper to serve requests with conventional methods than directly with LLM. My back-of-envelope calculation says, optimistically , it takes more than 100 GFLOPs to generate 10 tokens using a 7 billion parameter LLM. There are better ways to use electricity.

I work in enterprise IT and sometimes wonder if we should add the equivalent energy calculations of human effort - both productive and unproductive - that underlies these "output/cost" comparisons. I realize it sounds inhuman, but so is working in enterprise IT! :)

I agree wholeheartedly. It irks me when people critique automation because it uses large amounts of resources. Running a machine or a computer almost always uses far less resources than a human would to do the same task, so long as you consider the entire resource consumptions.

Growing the food that a human eats, running the air conditioning for their home, powering their lights, fueling their car, charging their phone, and all the many many things necessary to keep a human alive and productive in the 21st century are a larger resource cost than almost any machine/system that performs the same work. From an efficiency perspective, automation is almost always the answer. The actual debate comes from the ethical perspective (the innate value of human life).

Re: Show HN: Why write code if the LLM can just do the thing? (web app experiment)

#170

Post by taotau »

dboreham wrote: post #84

Another version of this question: why have high level languages if AI writes the code abd tests it?

Because high level languages are where the libraries that do all of the heavy lifting exist. Libraries provide a suite of tools for absstracting away all of the complexities of creating a 'simple' web app. I think a lot of newer devs dont realise how many shoulders of giants they are standing on, and all the complexities involved in performing a simpl fetch requeust.

Sure an LLM could write it's own libraries and abstractions in a low level language, and im sure there are some assembler or c level web api wrappers, but they would be nowhere near as comprehensive or battle tested as the ones available for high level languages.

This could definitely change in the future. I think we need a coding platform that is designed for optimised LLM use, but that still allows humans to understand and write it. Kind of a markdown for code. Sort of like what OP is trying to do, but with the built in benefit of having a common shared suite of tools for interoperability.

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