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The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

theocharis.dev

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Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#81

Post by qsera »

themgt wrote: post #30
dominotw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t help but wonder whether constant use of “agent” harnesses will lead to an atrophy of the software engineering (or really any field) muscles. For sure. You cannot have "only higher level thoughts" without doing lower level work. Ironically llm themselves prove that because you cannot remove facts like 'paris is capital of france' from llm and have it just retain 'high level thoughts' like 'countries have cap…

For sure. You cannot have "only higher level thoughts" without doing lower level work. Spend 3 days a week writing Ruby on Rails and 2 days hand rolling x86 assembly. Every web dev I know has been doing this since long before LLMs. Ensures they can keep having high level Rails thoughts.

Honestly, horrible example.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#82

Post by myaccountonhn »

voidfunc wrote: post #77
jmuguy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is where I stopped. I use AI every day for work but 10k spend to me is a signal that OP is doing something extremely stupid with their AI use.

Doesn't seem that wild if youre doing large green field dev with frontier models. Im spending about 2-3K a week on personal projects and 5K a week on corporate stuff.

Crazy. I use claude pro and I barely hit the quota working on greenfield stuff.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#83

Post by quantummagic »

cj wrote: post #40
prettyblocks wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t help but wonder whether constant use of “agent” harnesses will lead to an atrophy of the software engineering (or really any field) muscles. It will, but I'm not sure the impact of this will be all too great. We suffer from not knowing how to use an abacus because we have a calculator, and people who feel a pull to keep their low-level chops up will do so anyway.

Now imagine if your calculator billed per button press. And imagine you can't own a calculator because owning one outright requires too much hardware (or whatever).

The exact same arguments were made against electronic computing in general, in the early days. Pearl clutching is a very human thing to do as new technologies are integrated and become common place. A whole generation or two of developers are going to have to pass away before we stop hearing incessant diatribes about LLMs.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#84

Post by dspillett »

voidUpdate wrote: post #58

> "Last but not least, even when just researching with LLMs, they have the natural tendency to silently sneak in the thoughts of the majority of the training materials, or sometimes even the political convictions of the ones who created the model." > "Yet I still write all of my texts with LLMs" So I'm guessing the author is actually ok with the point they put in the "LLMs are bad" part of the article?

As long as, after it writing his texts, he is reviewing and editing them, I don't see the contradiction there. And I'm somewhat anti-AI (if I don't care enough to make the effort of writing it myself, why do I care for it to be written at all?).

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#85

Post by cj »

quantummagic wrote: post #83
cj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine if your calculator billed per button press. And imagine you can't own a calculator because owning one outright requires too much hardware (or whatever).

The exact same arguments were made against electronic computing in general, in the early days. Pearl clutching is a very human thing to do as new technologies are integrated and become common place. A whole generation or two of developers are going to have to pass away before we stop hearing incessant diatribes about LLMs.

Don't use calculator as an analogy, then.

Calculators are a simple machine that implement very basic rules.

LLMs are in a different category. The parallels you can draw between LLMs and calculators.. just don't make sense.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#86

Post by adamas »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #80
adamas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI code must always be reviewed Yeah, of course AI code must always be reviewed. All code must be reviewed.

Nope. Not true anymore. Right now the bottleneck is the review because code comes out so fast there is a measurable and adjustable trade off that can be made. If you review all code, your output will be slow. If you review less code, your output will be faster at the cost of more bugs in production. Bug rate will never go down to zero whether you use AI or not. That is the trade off, if you review everything then out…

With that logic, you would let an intern force push his way to prod, that's not a smart move.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#87

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #65
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting all this in 2nd paragraph so that you can skip it if you think 'coding' is your primary portion of your job. I suppose I am in a mildly privileged position in a sense that my work is a weird intersection of tech, finance, and comprehension. In other words, I don't code much, but I absolutely benefit from now being able to play with various projects I would otherwise have no business touching without a bigger…

Why would you be very careful with a one-off script? The only point is the output. On the other hand, if you actually care about the output, how do you know it's right, unless you review the script? I mean, if all you care about is plausible-looking output, you could have the LLM produce that , and skip the Python script entirely...

Eh, unlike some of my contemporaries, I am not as interested in merely plausible-looking output. I want good output each time, but I am clearly still trying to find a good balance.

Re: The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway

#90

Post by Orphis »

msdz wrote: post #2

> LLM’s amplify what you already have: opinions, structure, frameworks. So far, so agreeable, but… > If you have thoughts, they come out sharper and faster. I can’t help but wonder whether constant use of “agent” harnesses will lead to an atrophy of the software engineering (or really any field) muscles. Actual muscles need exercise to stay in shape (let alone grow), so does the brain. Can we really be sure that thou…

> I can’t help but wonder whether constant use of “agent” harnesses will lead to an atrophy of the software engineering (or really any field) muscles.

Compiler evolutions really harmed how well software engineers understand or how often they have to drop down to assembly language.

Is that a problem for the 99% of developers around? Probably not.

I view LLMs as the next evolution. Some people will still need to care about the layer below, the shape of the code that is being written. But over time, just as it was with the transition from crafted ASM to higher level languages, the compilers became better, more efficient and trustworthy and I think the same will happen to LLMs, and we probably won't have to check the generated code as much, at least for most of the code around.

Is that a problem? Yes, for code that is intended to interface with humans (most of it still). The quality will probably become better and it won't be much of an issue.

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