AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs • Hacker News Board

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#111

Post by NegativeK » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 4:41 PM UTC

qw wrote: post #87

mondoshawan wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a technical manager, this actually isn't that far from what happens with teams of engineers. The less precise I am in describing the requirements of a system, the less correct solution is produced. This isn't to say that my team is incompetent or mindless -- far from it, I find them to be some of the most talented engineers I've had the pleasure of working with. Perhaps the solution to this particular problem is a…

I'm not saying it applies to your case, but one danger of specifying a problem in too much detail, is that it teaches the engineers to think less about the problem. From my experience developers often think of failure cases that the managers are not aware of, or have a simpler solution to a problem.

And yet if the problem isn't specified enough, we engineers will run off and deal with failure cases that aren't relevant to the client's needs.

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#112

Post by jcranmer » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 4:44 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #79

A nit I'd like to pick. No, AI didn't write code. A program explicitly built and trained to write code , wrote code. A bit too pedantic, perhaps, but there isn't some singular program out there which first learned to play chess, then see and catalog pictures, create creepy art, play Go, drive cars, and now write code. Which is what "AI learns to X" seems to imply. Of course, that's not as interesting of a headline.

It's even less interesting because programs to generate code have already been around for a while. In fact, at PLDI, program synthesis is considered a specific track of research papers.

Hell, you're probably using computer-written code right now. FFTW and ATLAS are autogenerated and autotuned kernels for solving FFT instances of known size and linear algebra routines, respectively, and they're among the most common implementations of these APIs.

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#113

Post by codr4life » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

flippyfloppies wrote: post #100

codr4life wrote: post #99

At least when code monkeys copy-paste from Stack Overflow, there's a trace of common sense in the loop. Yes, it's possible to copy-paste your way to working software without having a clue. No, it's not a very good idea. How about if we shut these clowns down and use the money for research that has a chance of improving anything?

calm down, it's not coming for your job yet. soon, though.

I'm not worried about that; computers will only ever copy, they are incapable of creating anything new; much like management. What bothers me is the amount of energy being sucked into this black hole, trying to mimic human intelligence in computers. The sooner we get over this stupid hump and start treating AI as a tool, the better.

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#114

Post by pasquinelli » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

kleiba wrote: post #45

“It could allow non-coders to simply describe an idea for a program and let the system build it” This is not a new thought. The problem with it, however, is that such a description would have to be very precise or else leave room for different interpretations which in turn could lead to very different programs being generated. In particular, as programmers know, it's often the edge cases that pose the main difficulty…

Sounds like we need ai to figure out what sort of software we need.

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#115

Post by spaced_out » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

geophile wrote: post #81

felixge wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that simple. Imagine a simple add(int32, int32) int32 function. Unless you write a test for all 2^32 * 2^32 possible inputs and their expected outputs, how could you guarantee that the AI will come up with the "correct" implementation? Automated tests are generally not practical for proofing program correctness. Why would you expect them to be sufficient as a specification format?

Software produced by a typical business app developer is not provably correct either. TDD of AI generated code could not hope to produce something more correct. As your tests get better, so would the software produced both by the human and the AI. For your add(int32, int32) function: While an AI-generated implementation is not provably correct unless the test contains 2^64 inputs, I think it's pretty likely that a co…

I don't think it's as likely as you assume. Let's say you ask the computer to implement your adder, and you feed it the results of a few dozen, or a few hundred uint32 a + uint32 b = uint32 c operations. By coincidence, however, in all of those operations, every time bit a[14] is zero, bit c[26] also happens to be zero. The computer may produce an implementation which assumes this is always the case. The computer may also reason it does not need to look at some of the input bits, if say, for all of the tests, bit b[2] == bit b[16].

It may seem that a solution with assumptions like those are more complex than a simple addition operation, and thus the computer will find the addition solution first, but "simple" is a matter of perspective. Addition requires a logic cascade through the entire number, since the carries of the lower bits must be passed to the upper bits, which requires a critical path equal to the entire length of the inputs/outputs. In searching for an implementation which satisfies the few dozen/hundred test cases you feed it, making assumptions like those in the first paragraph can drastically shorten the critical path, and require far less logic since it's ignoring much of the input. Thus algorithmically, the addition operation may be seen as more complex.

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#116

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #78

geophile wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't TDD basically provide a spec? Write a test, then let the AI generate a program that passes the test. If the program is still buggy, you didn't write sufficient tests.

To completely specify a program via tests, you've effectively written the program. You've also probably written somewhere around 2x the code the actual program would require as well. I'd be more curious to see an AI write tests...

> ou've also probably written somewhere around 2x the code the actual program would require as well.

If you go trough the easiest path, you just need to write the program and compare the results with the AI's ;)

But if you go on a case by case basis, your work will grow exponentially with the program size, not a mere 2x.

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#117

Post by michaelmrose » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 4:59 PM UTC

senior_james wrote: post #108

unprepare wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

making people in an industry more efficient at their jobs == job losses for that industry. if one programmer can now do the work of 5 with the help of an AI, companies will quickly be hiring less developers. yet everytime i mention this, im told that "software developers are the one job that will never be at risk of automation"

Open source has already started doing this to some degree. At my last few companies, we used open source projects as a base for many of our software. Instead of having to hire multiple senior level developers, all they needed to do was hire one project manager (me) and a bunch of junior developers (which are much cheaper). This is because all of the engineering-level software was given out for free and the company on…

Were you complying with the licenses?

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#118

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 4:59 PM UTC

senior_james wrote: post #108

unprepare wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

making people in an industry more efficient at their jobs == job losses for that industry. if one programmer can now do the work of 5 with the help of an AI, companies will quickly be hiring less developers. yet everytime i mention this, im told that "software developers are the one job that will never be at risk of automation"

Open source has already started doing this to some degree. At my last few companies, we used open source projects as a base for many of our software. Instead of having to hire multiple senior level developers, all they needed to do was hire one project manager (me) and a bunch of junior developers (which are much cheaper). This is because all of the engineering-level software was given out for free and the company on…

[deleted]

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#119

Post by pasquinelli » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 5:04 PM UTC

kleiba wrote: post #58

rorykoehler wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can describe something then you can just code it. I can see AI being used in an advanced IDE as an assistant. Just write your specs and let the AI build the app.

But wouldn't you agree that by the same line of reasoning, if you can spec it, you can code it? I mean, the difficulty lies in specifying what you want in such an unambiguous way that a program that fulfill the specification actually does what you had in mind originally.

I think you're lacking imagination. You're thinking of a software developing ai as a simple compiler. You also seem to think there must be a 1 to 1 relationship between a user's specification and resulting program. But a software developing ai could work very quickly , taking a vague natural language specification and giving many programs to choose from. That set would be narrowed based on a learned correspondence between natural language and completed programs, and narrowed and refined further with more vague natural language specification from the user. If the ai is smart enough the system could be only a bit more complicated to use than a thumbs up/thumbs down on pandora.

or we just ditch humans and allow an ai to assess what software we need.

Re: AI learns to write its own code by stealing from other programs

#120

Post by djfm » Thu, Feb 23, 2017, 5:20 PM UTC

The title is misleading, I thought this was going to be about "True AI". The AI doesn't write its own code, it writes code instead of you but always uses the same code. Or did I misunderstand?