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The copilot delusion

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Re: The copilot delusion

#51

Post by MeetingsBrowser »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #33
boxed wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clean code is nice. Working code is a requirement. You missed the point. AI slop doesn't just fail on point 1. It fails on point 2.

I work in an enterprise company where we just recently got access to use cursor, before that copilot. We have literally stood up entire services built practically entirely with AI that are deployed right now and consumers are using. AI does work with competent people behind the wheel. People can't keep hiding behind saying that it always churns out code that doesn't work. We are way past those days. If you don't you…

> entire services built practically entirely with AI

What kind of services and how complex are they?

I've been using Cursor for a year and struggle to get the agent to make competent changes in a medium sized code base.

Even something isolated like writing a test for a specific function usually take multiple rounds of iteration and manual cleanup at the end.

Re: The copilot delusion

#52

Post by BowBun »

focusgroup0 wrote: post #16

Adapt or die. Keep up on industry trends and learn how to (responsibly) use the tools to be a better programmer, or be unnaturally selected out.

100% agree, but I bet there will be a quality blowback in software much like what we've seen at Boeing over the last few decades. I think there will be a premium on higher-quality software, but most companies don't need it

Re: The copilot delusion

#53

Post by nalekberov »

lyu07282 wrote: post #48
focusgroup0 wrote: post #16

Adapt or die. Keep up on industry trends and learn how to (responsibly) use the tools to be a better programmer, or be unnaturally selected out.

We will see, but I can also imagine the pile of shit you vibecoded around you collapsing on top of you.

The response will be "we adapted to the trends, don't blame us, blame the machines"

Re: The copilot delusion

#54

Post by Jcampuzano2 »

lukan wrote: post #32
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #19

As a preface, I think lots of people will not like this take. A lot of people are going to have to come to the realization that has already been mentioned before but many find it hard to grasp. Your boss, stakeholders, and especially non-technical people literally give 0 fucks about "quality code" as long as it does what they want it to do. They do not care about tests insofar as if it works it works. Many have no cl…

I lost all my snobism about that years ago and I do just follow the paradigm, "does it work". But for some reasons, even with AI I ain't on another level. And those reasons are, it all collapses very quickly once the complexity reaches an medium amount. And if I want to rely on things and debug them - I cannot just have a pile of generated garbage, that works as long as the sun is shining. For isolated tasks it works…

Most replies here make the claim that all AI generated code is "garbage". And I can't help but think most of the people who say that do not actually use it in their day to day with the most recent models and actually give it good instructions/requirements.

No, it is not always perfect. Yes you will have to manually edit some of the code it generates. But yes it can and will generate good code if you know how to use it and use sophisticated tools with good guidance. And there are times where it will even write better more performant code than you could given the time requirements.

Re: The copilot delusion

#55

Post by throwaway314155 »

padolsey wrote: post #36

> if you want to sculpt the kind of software that gets embedded in pacemakers and missile guidance systems and M1 tanks—you better throw that bot out the airlock and learn. But the bulk of us aren't doing that... We're making CRUD apps for endless incoming streams of near identical user needs, just with slightly different integrations, schemas, and lipstick. Let's be honest. For most software there is nothing new und…

I don't mind your rebuttal of the article, but to suggest that this particular article is AI generated is foolish. The style the author presents is vivid, uses powerful imagery and metaphor and finally, at times, is genuinely funny. More qualitatively, the author incorporates a unique identity that persists throughout the entirety of a long form essay.

All of that is still difficult to get an LLM to do. This isn't AI generated. It's just good writing. Whether you buy the premise or not.

Re: The copilot delusion

#56

Post by ivape »

padolsey wrote: post #36

> if you want to sculpt the kind of software that gets embedded in pacemakers and missile guidance systems and M1 tanks—you better throw that bot out the airlock and learn. But the bulk of us aren't doing that... We're making CRUD apps for endless incoming streams of near identical user needs, just with slightly different integrations, schemas, and lipstick. Let's be honest. For most software there is nothing new und…

It’s funny because I made a few funny clips (to my taste) on Google Whisk and figured, hey why not, let’s make a TikTok. Did you know that all of TikTok is full of millions of ai generated stuff or other people just copying each others stuff? I really thought there was something to this “original creation” stuff.

We are all so simply reproducible. No one’s making anything special, anywhere, for the most part. If we all uploaded a TikTok video of daily coding, it would be the same fucking app over and over, just like the rest of TikTok.

Elon may have be right all along, there’s literally nothing left to do but goto Mars. Some of us were telling many of you that the LLMs don’t hallucinate as much as you think just two years ago, and I think the late to the party crowd need to hear us again - we humans are not really necessary anymore.

!RemindMe in 2 years

Re: The copilot delusion

#58

Post by boxed »

throwaway314155 wrote: post #55
padolsey wrote: post #36

> if you want to sculpt the kind of software that gets embedded in pacemakers and missile guidance systems and M1 tanks—you better throw that bot out the airlock and learn. But the bulk of us aren't doing that... We're making CRUD apps for endless incoming streams of near identical user needs, just with slightly different integrations, schemas, and lipstick. Let's be honest. For most software there is nothing new und…

I don't mind your rebuttal of the article, but to suggest that this particular article is AI generated is foolish. The style the author presents is vivid, uses powerful imagery and metaphor and finally, at times, is genuinely funny. More qualitatively, the author incorporates a unique identity that persists throughout the entirety of a long form essay. All of that is still difficult to get an LLM to do. This isn't AI…

Maybe he meant it was long. Some people seem to think that long walls of text is how you spot AI slop.

Re: The copilot delusion

#59

Post by lyu07282 »

ghaff wrote: post #23
bluefirebrand wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Management has an AI shaped hammer and they're hitting everything to see if it's a nail. I really think we need to figure out how to cut back on management so we can get back to the business of actually doing work

Coordinating teams, talking to stakeholders/customers (including spending a lot of time with them), having someone manage individual contributors at some level, etc. is work that can't just be ignored at a company of any size. The only way to avoid (a lot of) it is to be very small and that has its own set of issues.

I mean don't bite the boot that you can lick amirite
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