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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)

#261

Post by GTP »

jstummbillig wrote: post #69
113 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because nobody actually wants a "web app". People want food, love, sex or: solutions. Okay but when I start my car I want to drive it, not fuck it.

Most of us actually drive a car to get somewhere. The car, and the driving, are just a modality. Which is the point.

But I want that somewhere to be deterministic, i.e. I want to arrive to the place I choose. With this kind of non-determinism instead, I have a big chance of getting to the place I choose. But I will also every now and then end up in a different place.

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

#262

Post by mikebelanger »

attogram wrote: post #58

"It works. That's annoying." Indeed! Would be cooler if support for local llms was added. Currently only has support for anthropic and openai. https://github.com/samrolken/nokode/blob/main/src/config/ind...

Yeah that'd be really something. If you could just pay the cost up-front, rather than worry about how much every newer request cost, that really changes the game. There's still many other issues to worry about, like security. But as the author points out, we might be much closer than we think.

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

#263

Post by EagnaIonat »

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! :)

Goodhart’s Law will mess all that up for you.

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

#264

Post by vidarh »

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?

For some things you absolutely want deterministic behaviour. For other things, behaviour that adapts to usage and the context provided by the data the user provides sounds like it could potentially be very exciting. I'm glade people are exploring this. The hard part will be figuring out where the line goes, and when and how to "freeze" certain behaviours that the user seems happy with vs. continuing to adapt to data.

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

#266

Post by yreg »

jonplackett wrote: post #60
d-lisp wrote: post #54

Why would you need webapps when you could just talk out loud to your computer ? Why would I need programs with colors, buttons, actual UI ? I am trying to imagine a future where file navigators don't even exist : "I want to see the photos I took while I was in vacations last year. Yes, can you remove that cloud ? Perfect, now send it to XXXX's computer and say something nice." "Can you set some timers for my sport se…

Voice interfaces are not the be all and end all of communication. Even between humans we prefer text a lot of the time.

What GP describes sounds to me like having a friend control the computer and dictate to them what to do.

No matter how capable the friend it, it's oftentimes easier to do a task directly in a UI rather than to have to verbalize it to someone else.

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

#267

Post by koliber »

Both the speed and cost problems can be solved by caching.

Each person gets their own cache. The format of the cache is a git repo tied to their sessionid. Each time a request is made it writes the code, html, CSS, and database to git and commits it. Over time you build more and more artifacts and fewer things need to get generated JIT. Should also help with stability.

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

#268

Post by syngrog66 »

like how moving money atomically between 2 remote databases was a solved problem then some guy said, "Yes but let's reinvent that using blockchain!" and all the dystopic effects the world has seen since. indirectly leading to the overinvestment in massive amounts of GPU hardware which then got repurposed by the AI/LLM folks. funny that

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

#269

Post by estimator7292 »

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! :)

Only slightly joking, but someone needs to put environmental caps on software updates. Just imagine how much energy it takes for each and every discord user to download and install a 100MB update... three times a week.

Multiply that by dozens or hundreds of self-updating programs on a typical machine. Absolutely insane amounts of resources.

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

#270

Post by AmbroseBierce »

bloomca wrote: post #233
AmbroseBierce wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you set some timers for my sport session, can you plan a pure body weight session ? Yes, that's perfect. Wait, actually, remove the jumping jacks." Better yet, why exercise -which is so repetitive- if we can create a machine that just does it for you, including the dopamine triggering, why play an arcade video game where we can create a machine that fires the neuron needed to produce the exact same level of a ex…

> Bleak, we are oversimplifying existence itself and it doesn't lead to a nice place. We are already on this path for many-many years, certainly decades if not centuries, although availability was definitely spotty in the past. It is also kind of impossible to hop off this train, while it is individually possible to reject any of these conveniences, in general they just become a part of life. Which is not necessarily…

Citation needed on that last sentence about ir not a bad thing, also I'm pretty sure climate change 100% counts as a collateral damage of this behavior.
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