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The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

mazzzystar.github.io

131–140 of 311 posts

Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. We're back to the real problems that matter in sdev -- thinking about the problem, breaking it down, scoping things. Let an LLM do the grunt-work of writing the code, sure.

I agree, but I'm worried about where that leaves junior devs - what are the entry level jobs for coders in a post-LLM future?

If the future proponents envision actually comes to pass, there won't be much need for new coders anyway.

Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#132
There's a lot of focus on AI taking away jobs. I believe it will constitute an existential threat to a lot of companies. Highly productive solo individuals and very small teams will outcompete large companies by leveraging AI. When capital requirements, transaction and information costs drop dramatically, the optimal size of a firm will change. I believe they will become dramatically smaller.

Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#133
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for checking it out! "Today, GitHub Copilot is behind an average of 46 percent of a developers' code across all programming languages -- and in Java, that number jumps to 61 percent." - https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2023/02/15/copilot...

That post just cites an original [1] from someone at GitHub which says: > Case in point: When we first launched GitHub Copilot for Individuals in June 2022, more than 27% of developers’ code files on average were generated by GitHub Copilot. Today, GitHub Copilot is behind an average of 46% of a developers’ code across all programming languages—and in Java, that number jumps to 61%. I'm not sure what this means. GitH…

I guess it depends on how they calculate the percent. I assume it's by character count.

So it wouldn't surprise me. For repetitive code it's pretty good. And even with non repetitive code, once you start typing a bit it is good at finishing it.

Especially in a verbose language like Java. How much of copilot use is something that autocomplete would have handled anyways?

Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but I'm worried about where that leaves junior devs - what are the entry level jobs for coders in a post-LLM future?

They'll be the ones begging and cajoling LLMs to write the code. Notice that even these days, senior devs aren't supposed to code much - they're supposed to train up junior devs, up to the point said juniors become competent, at which point the juniors join the rank of seniors and begin to teach fresh junior hires. I.e. increasingly, juniors are the only people actually coding anything, and LLMs will only reinforce t…

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Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#135

> Staying in any company right now is a negative return; you are wasting personal leverage. I think it's a bit sad that the only benefit someone can see in their workplace is their salary. Also, I get the feeling this person has never done anything outside of consumer app development with minimal stakeholder interaction. Overall I think it's great we can supercharge our learning and coding capabilities, but it would…

> I think it's a bit sad that the only benefit someone can see in their workplace is their salary. It's not the only benefit, but it's the only one that you can't get in some other way. I suspect that very few people -- even people who love their jobs -- would continue working in them if they weren't getting paid.

Well, obviously - you need to make money. So if you're not getting paid at your current job, many people can't afford to stay at their current job. If I had UBI or some kind of trust fund, I might stay at my current job. I really do enjoy it and think I'm better off with the structure it provides me.

Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#136
Corporations serve a purpose - to organize human labor to fulfill a greater task that usually cannot be completed by an individual. So while I don't disagree that GPT-4 in the hands of a layperson programmer may suddenly turn them into a 10x developer, I don't know if that fact alone allows that individual to create great things.

In addition, there will be a great crowding out effect. If websites and apps are so easy to create now, there will be a deluge of junk to come. Every mediocre idea will be put forth.

Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#137
post #40

There's a long gap from: I built a podcast search website to: Staying in any company right now is a negative return. We humans are too easily impressed by tricks, and are too willing to extrapolate them to fantasy land. GPT can certainly accomplish an impressive variety of small tasks. Whether it can build large-scale systems that will power tomorrow's world is uncharted territory. Can you build something meaningful,…

I read it as an experiment and hypothesis. The author is on a quest to prove their hypotheses. I appreciate the insight into the work in progress and the potential outcomes. It's more beneficial for me than waiting several months to see it fully proven.

Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#138

This post reminded me that I’m still somewhat surprised ChatGPT-like systems did not arise out of China first due to their massive investment funds for AI and their base of stem talent. Once they catch-up their censors will have a super power and people will have their writings censored before they hit submit. Will be an interesting decade.

IMO China is a "long-term country". LLM does not lead to General Intelligence. While the former is profitable (financially and socially), the latter is the holy grail. Time will name the winner.

It heavily depends upon the definition of general intelligence, because we haven't really settled on a definition as of yet. In some circles (of course the ones from Microsoft) the list of requirements is very close to being met by some of the more sophisticated multimodal models (GPT-4 et al). General intelligence is a strange question because it's more about the data/environment than the architecture, (obviously if it were about theoretical capabilities of architecture, AGI was found ages ago).

Much of the LLM capabilities have to do with the generality baked into language. Pairing that with the well known proof that GNNs are dynamic programmers, you can get some very nice properties directly from the setup.

Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#139
post #100

AI tools are absolutely useless once you get past any initial stage in a software development cycle They just can't comprehend what needs to be done even if all that's required are 2 lines of code However, we keep seeing posts from people who don't know html or how to create a chrome extension paternalizing about how we can be much more productive with AI tools. Last I heard a CEO was demanding dev increased producti…

I’ve been programming for two decades and you’re just plain wrong here. It’s useful throughout the dev process for many things, the worst part right now is just how slow GPT-4 is to run inference. You’re probably not using it right, aren’t using GPT-4, or something. It’s a multiplier, for specific parts of development - the amount of annoying nonsense I no longer have to spend my limited time on earth thinking about…

Also got a couple decades, a ChatGPT Plus subscription on top of running my own local instance of Vicuna and access to Bard.

Enjoy it while it lasts. The training set (Stack Overflow) will dry as people move away from it, resulting in model degradation, resulting in not having a useful AI AND not having a useful SO

I admit to using AI, but only for what I was using SO before. Which is 0% of the work I actually get paid for (maintaining existing software that requires expert knowledge). For personal projects, sure, it's useful. Want to code something in a new language? Great. You'll still be a beginner, and will have contributed nothing to the body of knowledge that has trained the model you are using

Re: The Leverage of LLMs for Individuals

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's a bit sad that the only benefit someone can see in their workplace is their salary. It's not the only benefit, but it's the only one that you can't get in some other way. I suspect that very few people -- even people who love their jobs -- would continue working in them if they weren't getting paid.

Well yeah, but we're unlikely to ever live in a world where there aren't paid jobs. Personally, I enjoy working with people. I may not make as much money as going solo but holistically my work life is improved by having colleagues. I think the same is true for most people. No person is an island.

> I think the same is true for most people.

Sure, the same is true for me. But that's also a need that can be filled without working for someone.

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