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AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#21

Post by jjangkke »

catigula wrote: post #7
mikewarot wrote: post #3

There's been a strong theme recently here on HN of confusing programming (the act of writing code to meet specifications) and Engineering(the writing of specifications, and the oversight of said process, along with overview of testing). AI is definitely not ready for an Engineering role. My recent experience with ChatGPT5(Preview) via Visual Studio Code tells me that it might perform acceptably as a junior programmer…

No offense but your experience with AI is fairly primitive if that's where you're at.

I agree, using "chatgpt 5 in visual studio code" screams unfamiliarity with what is current.

Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#22

Post by kazinator »

manoDev wrote: post #10

I'm tired of the anthropomorphization marketing behind AI driving this kind of discussion. In a few years, all this talk will sound as dumb as stating "MS Word spell checker will replace writers" or "Photoshop will replace designers". We'll reap the productivity benefits from this new tool, create more work for ourselves, output will stabilize at a new level and salaries will stagnate again, as it always happens.

Generative AI is replacing writers, designers, actors, ... it is nothing like just a spell checker or Phtoshop.

Everyday, I see ads on YouTube with smooth-talking, real-looking AI-generated actors. Each one represents one less person that would have been paid.

There is no exact measure of correctness in design; one bad bit does not stop the show. The clients don't even want real art. Artists sometimes refer to commercial work as "selling out", referring to hanging their artistic integrity on the hook to make a living. Now "selling out" competes with AI which has no artistic integrity to hang on the hook, works 24 hours a day for peanuts and is astonishingly prolific.

Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#23

Post by tjr »

jjangkke wrote: post #15

I'm fatigued by these articles that just broadly claim AI can't code because its painting a broad stroke against a widely diverse use of AI for different stacks. It's horribly outdated way of thinking that an singular AI entity would be able to handle all stacks all problems directed at it because no developer is using it that way. AI is a great tool for both coders and artists and these outlandish titles that grab a…

A lot of comments here seem to be similar. I see people claiming that AI has all but taken over doing their work for them, and others claiming that it's almost useless. But usually, nobody even briefly mentions what the work is (other than, presumably, something related to programming).

I imagine there's a big difference in using AI for building, say, an online forum vs. building a flight control system, both in terms of what the AI theoretically can do, and in terms of what we maybe should or should not be letting the AI do.

Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#24

Post by matula »

mikewarot wrote: post #3

There's been a strong theme recently here on HN of confusing programming (the act of writing code to meet specifications) and Engineering(the writing of specifications, and the oversight of said process, along with overview of testing). AI is definitely not ready for an Engineering role. My recent experience with ChatGPT5(Preview) via Visual Studio Code tells me that it might perform acceptably as a junior programmer…

I think this is generally true, and there are SO MANY blog posts and articles. Using something like Claude Code to build an entire SaaS from nothing can seem like magic, but there is still a point where the code is too big and any LLM will lose context.

But there is a "sweet spot" where it's amazing, specifically highly targeted tasks with a specific context. I wanted a simple media converter app that tied into ffmpeg, and I didn't want to install any of the spammy or bloated options I found... so I got Claude to build one. It took about 30 minutes and works great.

I also asked it to update some legacy project, and it fell down a testing a loop where it failed to understand the testing database was missing. Had I not had years of knowledge, I would've looked at the output and suggestions Claude was giving and spent hours on it... but it was a simple command that fixed it. As with all new tech, your milage will vary.

Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#25

Post by anthonypasq »

crooked-v wrote: post #2

For me it's simple: even the best models are "lazy" and will confidently declare they're finished when they're obviously not, and the immensely increased amount of training effort to get ChatGPT 5's mild improvements on benchmarks suggests that that quality won't go away anytime soon.

gpt-5 is extremely cheap, what makes you think they couldn't produce a larger, smarter, more expensive model?

gpt-5 was created to be able to service 200m daily active users.

Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#26

Post by anthonypasq »

fmbb wrote: post #18
catigula wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense but your experience with AI is fairly primitive if that's where you're at.

Please elaborate. Share what you built and how you prompted and what you are making from it, and how many tokens you paid to rummage through.

you can't proclaim any sort of knowledge about AI's currently capabilities by opening up a codebase and typing a couple prompts into the vscode agent.

Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#27

Post by ACCount37 »

manoDev wrote: post #10

I'm tired of the anthropomorphization marketing behind AI driving this kind of discussion. In a few years, all this talk will sound as dumb as stating "MS Word spell checker will replace writers" or "Photoshop will replace designers". We'll reap the productivity benefits from this new tool, create more work for ourselves, output will stabilize at a new level and salaries will stagnate again, as it always happens.

I'm tired of all the "yet another tool" reductionism. It reeks of cope.

It took under a decade to get AI to this stage - where it can build small scripts and tiny services entirely on its own. I see no fundamental limitations that would prevent further improvements. I see no reason why it would stop at human level of performance either.

Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#28

Post by 9rx »

jjangkke wrote: post #15

I'm fatigued by these articles that just broadly claim AI can't code because its painting a broad stroke against a widely diverse use of AI for different stacks. It's horribly outdated way of thinking that an singular AI entity would be able to handle all stacks all problems directed at it because no developer is using it that way. AI is a great tool for both coders and artists and these outlandish titles that grab a…

Well, AI really can't code any more than a compiler can. They all require a human to write the original code, even the machine does translate it into other code.

And until the day that humans are no longer driving the bus that will remain the case.

Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#29

Post by arscan »

UncleEntity wrote: post #9

> These kinds of complex tasks can be difficult for AI development tools to navigate, resulting in hallucinations about where the bug is or its root cause, as well as irrelevant suggestions or code fixes with subtle problems. How is this any different than the way I program? I've contributed genuinely useful features to FLOSS projects "as well as irrelevant suggestions or code fixes with subtle problems", mostly the…

> Honestly, I was less than half as useful as the current crop of robots and they still tolerated (in fact, encouraged) my involvement.

Don’t sell yourself short. External contributors are extremely valuable as they are often users and provide real world validation of a need for whatever they are contributing. They also retain any knowledge for any feedback they receive that they can apply to future contributions. And they also become advocates for that software, helping it grow its user base.

LLMs, not so much.

Re: AI’s coding evolution hinges on collaboration and trust

#30

Post by SKILNER »

ACCount37 wrote: post #27
manoDev wrote: post #10

I'm tired of the anthropomorphization marketing behind AI driving this kind of discussion. In a few years, all this talk will sound as dumb as stating "MS Word spell checker will replace writers" or "Photoshop will replace designers". We'll reap the productivity benefits from this new tool, create more work for ourselves, output will stabilize at a new level and salaries will stagnate again, as it always happens.

I'm tired of all the "yet another tool" reductionism. It reeks of cope. It took under a decade to get AI to this stage - where it can build small scripts and tiny services entirely on its own. I see no fundamental limitations that would prevent further improvements. I see no reason why it would stop at human level of performance either.

>> It reeks of cope.

haha, well said, I've got to remember that one. HN is a smelly place when it comes to AI coping.

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