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I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

claytonwramsey.com

71–80 of 105 posts

Re: I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

#71
post #66
post #23

One of the first things I tell the junior/mid-level developers I mentor is "You can't debug something just by reading the code." We all have a mental model of how our code works, and it's usually a bit wrong. Bugs are the real world manifestations of those mistakes. When you read the code it's all filtered through your model, and that makes you blind to seeing why something unexpected happened. In order to debug some…

Hmmm, I don't think that's necessarily true. Often times once I have witnessed a bug, I have found it just by reading through the code with the behaviour of the bug in mind. For LLMs, this is likely to be disproportionately effective as well: especially because they don't really build up a persistent view of the codebase, they're generally re-reading it each session, and they tend to be surprisingly good at predictin…

Also Claude Code is very good at writing small scripts/on-off test cases to confirm bugs, so I wouldn't even say the initial premise is correct.

Re: I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

#72
post #5

These people need to take a vacation and come back in a few months when the vision models get better/cheaper. Astra is already good at taking screenshots and acting on it (part of the agi claims).

What about cases where a bug is only obvious in motion? Or where you're working with a SBC and the bug is that you forgot a cable? Screenshots alone aren't enough. The authors point stands.

Re: I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

#73
post #27

> I used to argue with people on the internet, after about six replies, you realize that you’re speaking to someone incapable of thought He realises the current woe of things but doesn't realise he's been arguing with bot farms and teams of people hired just for this reason - to sow doom, arguments and engagement. Around 10 years ago I noticed this happening on trending topics of Twitter - it wasn't that the opponent…

This is some schizo thinking. People you interact with online almost certainly aren't bots or paid.

Re: I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

#74
post #73
post #27

> I used to argue with people on the internet, after about six replies, you realize that you’re speaking to someone incapable of thought He realises the current woe of things but doesn't realise he's been arguing with bot farms and teams of people hired just for this reason - to sow doom, arguments and engagement. Around 10 years ago I noticed this happening on trending topics of Twitter - it wasn't that the opponent…

This is some schizo thinking. People you interact with online almost certainly aren't bots or paid.

Certainly aren't bots is dubious, although if there's actual interactions it's likely they aren't bots.

Paid, lmao I wish. Nobody gets paid to repeat propaganda, generally.

Re: I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

#75
post #34
post #27

> I used to argue with people on the internet, after about six replies, you realize that you’re speaking to someone incapable of thought He realises the current woe of things but doesn't realise he's been arguing with bot farms and teams of people hired just for this reason - to sow doom, arguments and engagement. Around 10 years ago I noticed this happening on trending topics of Twitter - it wasn't that the opponent…

Haha it’s just a foolish move made by those from the ‘90s. We all internalized a different lesson. The younger generations have learned to brush it off and stop responding. Even if the person is human, when you fail to move toward Aumann Agreement, there is no point in persisting. Us older ones are still fighting the last war. If only we explain it properly, maybe the bots will understand!

I justify it to myself by saying that even if I'm arguing with a bot, I want to have a counterargument posted for the benefit of the people who are reading the comments

Re: I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

#76
post #71
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, I don't think that's necessarily true. Often times once I have witnessed a bug, I have found it just by reading through the code with the behaviour of the bug in mind. For LLMs, this is likely to be disproportionately effective as well: especially because they don't really build up a persistent view of the codebase, they're generally re-reading it each session, and they tend to be surprisingly good at predictin…

Also Claude Code is very good at writing small scripts/on-off test cases to confirm bugs, so I wouldn't even say the initial premise is correct.

That's AI getting an example of replicating the state that shows the bug which is exactly what I'm talking about. It does that far more than humans do, and it's ace. That's how you should be debugging a system - replicate the issue, understand why it breaks in that given state, and then make a code change to fix it.

Sometimes you can do that mentally and fix the code. Often your fix will be right especially in a relatively simple part of the code. However, equally often you'll fix a different problem (or something that wasn't a problem at all), and the original bug will remain but you'll believe you corrected the issue. This is why you should always replicate a bug to understand it, and why you should always add a test whenever you fix a bug to prove you actually fixed it as well as preventing future regressions.

Re: I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

#78
post #23

One of the first things I tell the junior/mid-level developers I mentor is "You can't debug something just by reading the code." We all have a mental model of how our code works, and it's usually a bit wrong. Bugs are the real world manifestations of those mistakes. When you read the code it's all filtered through your model, and that makes you blind to seeing why something unexpected happened. In order to debug some…

> "You can't debug something just by reading the code."

This is exactly how I debug things. When I first started working I was forbidden from using the debugger “you won’t have a debugger in the field”. Being able to read the code, spot the bug and tie it to the symptoms; that’s a skill. A damned important skill.

Re: I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

#79
post #73
post #27

> I used to argue with people on the internet, after about six replies, you realize that you’re speaking to someone incapable of thought He realises the current woe of things but doesn't realise he's been arguing with bot farms and teams of people hired just for this reason - to sow doom, arguments and engagement. Around 10 years ago I noticed this happening on trending topics of Twitter - it wasn't that the opponent…

This is some schizo thinking. People you interact with online almost certainly aren't bots or paid.

> People you interact with online almost certainly aren't bots or paid.

Not all of them, and I'm not saying they target me. I noticed it more in popular engagement sinks - comments on popular instagram videos, replies on trending topics on Twitter, the main subs on Reddit.

There absolutely are engagement farms doing this for multiple reasons, and it at least seemed to me that most of the interactions in those places were not genuine.

Re: I'm a seeing-eye dog for a computer

#80
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom is slavery! AI owned by a few companies is more likely to put the majority right back to serfdom. You're a privileged fool to believe that freedom is the likely outcome of the current stampede. With a username that appears to cheer for a sociopath¹, I doubt reason will convince you. ¹ https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sources-sam-alt...

It was obviously a sarcastic joke. I get it if you didn't catch that, but do you think my username glorifies Sam Altman? And is that a reason to talk negatively about me? You doubt reason will convince me? And at the end, you call *me* a privileged fool. Wow, just wow. I hope you don't consider NWA a racial hate group given their name. Also, I don't think you can cite a subjective take as objectively correct by inclu…

The comment and username in isolation probably wouldn't have elicited that response from me. In combination, I took you for a delusional ultra-fan.

I think anyone who genuinely thinks AI is a wonderful thing for everyone probably enjoys the privilege of its use, reducing their own workload, without it (yet) affecting their employment, or their local environment, and possibly even lacks the empathy to comprehend negative affects on others. Obviously I was mistaken for thinking you were as such.

Putting words in others' mouths doesn't give credence to your points, the only homophobia here is coming from you. Straw men are not your friends.

Sociopathy in the context of running a powerful organisation is entirely relevant because making decisions that affect many, without really caring about the consequences for them, is generally regarded as a bad thing.

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