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For the longest time, the joy of creation in programming came from solving hard problems. The pursuit of a challenge meant something. Now, that pursuit seems to be short-circuited by an animated being racing ahead under a different set of incentives. I see a tsunami at the beach, and I’m not sure whether I can run fast enough.
Man, this is giving me a cognitive dissonance compared to my experiences. Actually, even the post itself reads like a cognitive dissonance with a dash of the usual "if it's not working for you then you are using it wrong" defence.
Man, this is giving me a cognitive dissonance compared to my experiences. Actually, even the post itself reads like a cognitive dissonance with a dash of the usual "if it's not working for you then you are using it wrong" defence.
I think of it this way. If you dropped Einstein with a time machine two thousand year ago, people would think he is some crazy guy doing scribbles in the sand. No one would ever know how smart he is. The same is with people and advanced AGI like Gemini 3 Pro or Chatgpt 5.2 Pro. We are just dumber than them.
To use an analogy, it would be like spending all your time before a battle making sure your knife is sharp when your opponent has a tank.
Being a nondeterministic tool, the output for a given input can vary. Rather than having a solid plan of, "if I provide this input, then that will happen", it's more like, "if I do something like this, I can expect something like that, probably, and if not, then try again until it works, I suppose". What are the productivity gains? Obviously, it must vary. The quality of the tool output varies based on numerous crite…
Being a nondeterministic tool, the output for a given input can vary. Rather than having a solid plan of, "if I provide this input, then that will happen", it's more like, "if I do something like this, I can expect something like that, probably, and if not, then try again until it works, I suppose". What are the productivity gains? Obviously, it must vary. The quality of the tool output varies based on numerous crite…
Non determinism of AI feels like a compiler which will on same input code spit out different executable on every run. Fixing bugs will become more like a ritual to satisfy whims of the machine spirit.
Slop-oriented programming
Being a nondeterministic tool, the output for a given input can vary. Rather than having a solid plan of, "if I provide this input, then that will happen", it's more like, "if I do something like this, I can expect something like that, probably, and if not, then try again until it works, I suppose". What are the productivity gains? Obviously, it must vary. The quality of the tool output varies based on numerous crite…
Non determinism does not imply non correctness. You can have the LLM do 10 different outputs, but maybe all 10 are valid solutions. Some might be more optimal in certain situations, and some might appeal to different people aesthetically.
All ten outputs might be valid. All ten will almost certainly be different -- though even that is not guaranteed.
The OP referred to the notion of there being no manual; we have to figure out how to use the tool ourselves.
A traditional programming tool manual would explain that you can provide input X and expect output Y. Do this, and that will happen. It is not so clear-cut with AI tools, because they are -- by default, in popular configurations -- nondeterministic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Non determinism does not imply non correctness. You can have the LLM do 10 different outputs, but maybe all 10 are valid solutions. Some might be more optimal in certain situations, and some might appeal to different people aesthetically.
Nondeterminism indeed does not imply non-correctness. All ten outputs might be valid. All ten will almost certainly be different -- though even that is not guaranteed. The OP referred to the notion of there being no manual; we have to figure out how to use the tool ourselves. A traditional programming tool manual would explain that you can provide input X and expect output Y. Do this, and that will happen. It is not…
Of course, we maybe never get there :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nondeterminism indeed does not imply non-correctness. All ten outputs might be valid. All ten will almost certainly be different -- though even that is not guaranteed. The OP referred to the notion of there being no manual; we have to figure out how to use the tool ourselves. A traditional programming tool manual would explain that you can provide input X and expect output Y. Do this, and that will happen. It is not…
We are one functional output guarantee away from them being optimizing compilers. Of course, we maybe never get there :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are one functional output guarantee away from them being optimizing compilers. Of course, we maybe never get there :)
Why would one opt to use an LLM-based AI tool as a compiler? It seems that would be extraordinarily complex over traditional compilers, but for what benefit?
A star trek replicator for software.
Obviously we are nowhere near that, and we may never arrive. But this is the big bet.