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LLMs reward expertise

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Re: LLMs reward expertise

#311

Post by tyzoid »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #305
friendzis wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They didn’t even get to that point. Because my friend didn’t have the vocabulary to ask the AI to write code. What harness did you use? In e.g. claude, there are two modes: 1. Spit out code 2. Draft a plan, ask questions, GOTO 1 You literally have to go out of your way to get it NOT to write code. I keep mine on a tight-ish leash because it modify code way too happily even when there's no intention or instruction t…

Harness? I am an avid HN reader but even I don't yet fully understand how this word is used in the AI context. Which is exactly the point of the OP. It all boils down to naming things and cache invalidation, /s

Harness refers to the tooling that allows you to interact with an LLM. Web chat interface is a harness, CLI coding tools (claude code, codex, opencode, pi, etc.) are harnesses, agent systems (openclaw, hermes, etc.) are harnesses. They present different capabilities to the underlying LLM. Codex, for example, is more likely to write code if you say "I want to build an app" than ChatGPT on web will.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#312

Post by sam_lowry_ »

ElectricalUnion wrote: post #218
davely wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps! But I do think the vocabulary issue is real and I think LLMs are still sycophantic enough that they won’t really challenge someone or offer alternative ideas on how to implement something unless they explicitly ask. Interestingly at my work, Claude Code was available before Claude Desktop, so a number of non-technical PMs tried to use it in order to build… anything, with very mixed success. The “hey guys, ch…

> the terminal is a scary place Isn't the the powerful, unlimited, unopinionated blank LLM text input waiting for your instructions eerily similar to a scary terminal? WIMP and GUI paradigms are the exact the opposite: intentional dis-empowering, by design restrictions, enumeration of your few possible options. Those feel more constrained therefore safer.

I am old enough to have observed non-tech workers using all kinds of text-based interfaces and it was a real pleasure seeing how old ma's would jiggle numbers on the bc-style TUI in the way that would offset any modern CompSci major.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#313

Post by raincole »

krisoft wrote: post #191

I did a test a few months ago. A friend of mine wanted to develop what i understood to be a simple single page web app. But since she didn’t have any software engineering experience she asked me to help. Around that time everyone was talking about how literally anyone can develop software with LLMs i asked her if she could give it a try first, and if I could watch the attempt. I was fully expecting that writing the c…

Do your friend at least know what Claude Code (or any harness) is?

Of course she wouldn't be able to make a website if she doesn't even know the right tools to use. But I don't think it prove anything. Knowing and installing Claude Code might not be a common sense, but nor is it "expertise" or "skill."

I've seen in first hand that people struggle installing Steam. Yes, "people" in the plural. But just because some people struggle with it, it doesn't mean that installing Steam isn't an objectively easy task. Your friend's experience doesn't change the fact that building a website is something that an average person can do in hours if not minutes.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#314

Post by sam_lowry_ »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #237
ElectricalUnion wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the terminal is a scary place Isn't the the powerful, unlimited, unopinionated blank LLM text input waiting for your instructions eerily similar to a scary terminal? WIMP and GUI paradigms are the exact the opposite: intentional dis-empowering, by design restrictions, enumeration of your few possible options. Those feel more constrained therefore safer.

Terminals are scary because it feels insurmountable. What are you supposed to do? If you just type “start python program” it gives you this absurd error that doesn’t make sense. What do you mean start is not in path? The moment you interact with an LLM it gives you feedback that you’re doing things right. It feels like a gradual climb instead of a series of abrupt jumps. People really don’t like feeling like they don…

Scary but then liberating once you get to know what you have to type in to reach your objective.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#315

Post by 00deadbeef »

RileyJames wrote: post #213
krisoft wrote: post #191

I did a test a few months ago. A friend of mine wanted to develop what i understood to be a simple single page web app. But since she didn’t have any software engineering experience she asked me to help. Around that time everyone was talking about how literally anyone can develop software with LLMs i asked her if she could give it a try first, and if I could watch the attempt. I was fully expecting that writing the c…

I’d love to see this experiment executed with Claude design. Particularly with something static, I don’t think they’d fail to get a result. But without domain knowledge I think they’d misunderstand prototype with finished product. Without knowing what it’s doing, it’s hard to know what it’s not doing.

My non-technical cofounder managed to vibe code a holding page with Claude Design and it walked him through deploying it to Netlify.

However for some reason it had him deploy a single HTML file with all the assets encoded as a huge base64 blob in the code that required a massive amount of JavaScript to extract and render.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#316

Post by OutOfHere »

baxtr wrote: post #306
friendzis wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They didn’t even get to that point. Because my friend didn’t have the vocabulary to ask the AI to write code. What harness did you use? In e.g. claude, there are two modes: 1. Spit out code 2. Draft a plan, ask questions, GOTO 1 You literally have to go out of your way to get it NOT to write code. I keep mine on a tight-ish leash because it modify code way too happily even when there's no intention or instruction t…

How should his friend know what a harness is?

Of course everyone knows what a harness is. It is the vest they put on their dogs. Also, construction workers use one. You can buy one on Amazon.

As for a coding harness, I prefer the term agentic coding.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#318

Post by Thanemate »

The LLM industry is deliberately consuming human expertise on a grand scale, so that eventually knowledge work is delegated to any machine, yet I have to gain some sense of comfort knowing that for the present point in time it still rewards personal skill?

Regardless of whether you agree with the claim or not, it's definitely not the endgame.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#319

Post by sshine »

krisoft wrote: post #191

I did a test a few months ago. A friend of mine wanted to develop what i understood to be a simple single page web app. But since she didn’t have any software engineering experience she asked me to help. Around that time everyone was talking about how literally anyone can develop software with LLMs i asked her if she could give it a try first, and if I could watch the attempt. I was fully expecting that writing the c…

I have the same experience giving my brother an OpenClaw as his personal assistant.

His words were: It feels as if I need to know how to program it.

I was expecting he could say something like "Oh, it seems like you don't remember the people I'm referring to, perhaps you need some kind of CRM system. Can you investigate if there are any easily available CRM systems you can interface with, so we don't need to make one for you?"

Whereas my OpenClaw moment was trying to make it manage its own NixOS installation, so that if I ask it to do something, it doesn't yolo `apt install` commands, but rather improves on the same overview of its own installation.

A lot of people had success making their OpenClaw do things without being Linux experts. But you need a tinkerer's mindset, is what I came to conclude.

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