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The Coming Loop

lucumr.pocoo.org

171–180 of 322 posts

Re: The Coming Loop

#171
post #160

What does any of that mean in practice? it's just rambling about abstract concepts that seem to be designed to hint at a bigger picture, when it's just getting AI to write code for you. Is this where it's going? Having to mystify our roles so it seems like we're still the thought leaders when actually we're just becoming pseudo-teachers that try and herd our group of AI idiots to the right conclusion for us so we don…

When someone is expected to be wizened and does not have the knowledge to keep up with the needs of those around them, they in turn become Shamanistic in their practice. The speed of improvement on these models has been incredible and has outpaced the learning speed of humans and put many experts into these Shamanistic roles. I think the operative means of addressing this is to recognize that we can only learn so qui…

Algorithms and data that emulate responses aren't smart.

A 5 year old knows if you want to wash your car, you need to take it to the car wash.

Re: The Coming Loop

#172
post #160

What does any of that mean in practice? it's just rambling about abstract concepts that seem to be designed to hint at a bigger picture, when it's just getting AI to write code for you. Is this where it's going? Having to mystify our roles so it seems like we're still the thought leaders when actually we're just becoming pseudo-teachers that try and herd our group of AI idiots to the right conclusion for us so we don…

When someone is expected to be wizened and does not have the knowledge to keep up with the needs of those around them, they in turn become Shamanistic in their practice. The speed of improvement on these models has been incredible and has outpaced the learning speed of humans and put many experts into these Shamanistic roles. I think the operative means of addressing this is to recognize that we can only learn so qui…

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Re: The Coming Loop

#173
post #160

What does any of that mean in practice? it's just rambling about abstract concepts that seem to be designed to hint at a bigger picture, when it's just getting AI to write code for you. Is this where it's going? Having to mystify our roles so it seems like we're still the thought leaders when actually we're just becoming pseudo-teachers that try and herd our group of AI idiots to the right conclusion for us so we don…

tech blogs used to read like actionable readme guides. I couldn't finish it without thinking: what am I supposed to do with this information? The shelf life of the latest and greatest is about 2 weeks in the AI space. I never caught up to the ralph wiggum loop and now I'm glad I never tried.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46682325

Re: The Coming Loop

#174

Generally interesting reflections here, yet I see the same kind of myopia and fatalism that is rampant in our (fashion) industry: > yet I have no doubts that this looping future is going to be our future despite the fact that I presently resent it Why would anyone concluded this? LLMs are just one kind of application of MLs to software production. There is a vast solution space for automating parts of software produc…

"It is inevitable, soon all insulation will be asbestos, you have to learn the types in order to be competitive in its new future."

Re: The Coming Loop

#175

I have had some success with /goal for long tasks that can be set up in a way that the agent can do good work for an extended period of time. A lot of tasks aren't amenable to that, and the ones that are still need a lot of care to be set up correctly. The default vibe coded codebase won't be. I've come to think of the activity of choosing the right technology, the right architecture, the right testing setup, the rig…

How much does /goal actually help? In auto mode, I've tried using and not using /goal and I haven't felt a difference. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/goal#how-evaluation-works > /goal is a wrapper around a session-scoped prompt-based Stop hook. Each time Claude finishes a turn, the condition and the conversation so far are sent to your configured small fast model, which defaults to Haiku. The model returns a yes-or-…

I've mainly used the feature in codex, where I've been able to get it to work for 5 straight days (with breaks when rate limits are hit -- which was surprisingly only thrice) on a massive port.

I don't know how well it works in claude code, but I wouldn't be worried about Haiku getting it wrong and don't see a problem with it relying on the transcript. I always set these things up to maintain a checklist of subtasks to do in a file and check them off, and to always implement with red/green testing methodology, where it writes and commits failing tests, then writes the feature/fixes the bug and commits with passing tests and with an updated checklist file.

So the model should always know from the transcript whether the current task is done by whether it shows the tests passing, and it should always know if there's more tasks left from the checklist file being updated before the commit.

Re: The Coming Loop

#176
post #5

I'm a software developer from way back, using tools and languages that coding agents are far less familiar with. So when I use an agent to write code, it's in languages I'm less familiar with, and often using libraries I know nothing about. All to say, my part of the process often ends up being: 1. "Here's what I'm looking for, in detail" 2. "That's not right. Here's one way it's not right, and a specific example. Pl…

Sounds like a great way to avoid learning anything new about the languages you don't already know.

Re: The Coming Loop

#178
post #160

What does any of that mean in practice? it's just rambling about abstract concepts that seem to be designed to hint at a bigger picture, when it's just getting AI to write code for you. Is this where it's going? Having to mystify our roles so it seems like we're still the thought leaders when actually we're just becoming pseudo-teachers that try and herd our group of AI idiots to the right conclusion for us so we don…

When someone is expected to be wizened and does not have the knowledge to keep up with the needs of those around them, they in turn become Shamanistic in their practice. The speed of improvement on these models has been incredible and has outpaced the learning speed of humans and put many experts into these Shamanistic roles. I think the operative means of addressing this is to recognize that we can only learn so qui…

[deleted]

Re: The Coming Loop

#179
I have huge respect for Armin but all of the concerns about agents producing more code with less competent supervision from senior engineers doesn't seem that different from the status quo to me. A vast majority of all software I've ever professionally worked with has been terribly structured, hard to work with, full of bugs, etc, produced by mediocre to bad engineers and run by semi technical product owners or managers who basically promot the software into existence by making jira tickets on 2 week cycles to hold it together.

Yes it's awful, but it kind of works and has worked for a very long time. Agents are already improving a lot of open source software. Yes they're producing a lot of slop too, but having beautiful code, understanding how the system works and being able to delegate to a competent engineer you trust is reserved for the very few right now and I think we have all the systems and experience in place to deal with "bad" but working software so personally I am not concerned

Re: The Coming Loop

#180

> You Cannot Quite Opt Out I am so over this. I cannot take anyone seriously that claims inevitability of their ideas, and how you must adopt them without "being left behind". If these tools are so good and so capable the result should be able to speak for themselves rather than this FOMO inducing, emotional language.

It's especially rich when you consider the shitty code the "loop" produces. The article quotes Boris Cherny as if he's someone to look up to. But then you look at the code he produces with "loops", and it's an unmaintainable ball of mud:

[1] https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/116324676116121930

[2] https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/116349873176941251

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