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I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

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Re: I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

#11

Post by pulvinar »

acuozzo wrote: post #8
im3w1l wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if the AI can provide both a program and a machine-verifiable proof of correctness though. Then all you have to manually verify is that the proof proves the right thing.

How will the AI overcome the halting problem?

Well humans haven't overcome it, and we muddle through. Same with AI, it seems.

Re: I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

#12

Post by bguebert »

goto11 wrote: post #9
im3w1l wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if the AI can provide both a program and a machine-verifiable proof of correctness though. Then all you have to manually verify is that the proof proves the right thing.

So the only thing a developer have to deliver is an unambiguous specification of what the program is supposed to do!

If I could get unambiguous specifications, then my job might actually be in trouble. It would cut my workload down considerably.

Re: I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

#13

Post by CuriouslyC »

eimrine wrote: post #3

> AI is the next 100x productivity boost. I do not agree with this statement. There is totally no progress in AI since cryptowinter. Just there are too much people with always-online smartphones, so governments considered this field as too big to be out of their control. And it leads to 100x increase of no-brain programming job where everything what is needed from that kind of programmers - to fight against users. Th…

AI will definitely eventually allow one person to perform the work that would take 100 today, and more. It's pretty easy to see the path there by extrapolating from what's happening in image/video diffusion models right now, and the language models have shown that they can task generalize well into basic problem solving, to the extent that a problem is similar to something that has been solved many times before. Simple tools built using the models of today could easily double the productivity of an artist or writer, so we're somewhere between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude off, which seems very achievable to me given the progress of the last 50 years.

Re: I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

#14

Post by goto11 »

bguebert wrote: post #12
goto11 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the only thing a developer have to deliver is an unambiguous specification of what the program is supposed to do!

If I could get unambiguous specifications, then my job might actually be in trouble. It would cut my workload down considerably.

I was half joking, because software development is largely the process of developing an unambiguous specification - just in the form of executable code.

Re: I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

#15

Post by torginus »

acuozzo wrote: post #8
im3w1l wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if the AI can provide both a program and a machine-verifiable proof of correctness though. Then all you have to manually verify is that the proof proves the right thing.

How will the AI overcome the halting problem?

Easy - it will come up with a solution too complicated for mere humans to understand, at which point everyone will assume it is correct.

Re: I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

#16

Post by cjk »

> Everyone in the world will be at least John Carmack-level software capable.

lol

I'm sure that for simple tasks, AI-based pair programming will offer some level of acceleration, but until it can understand the semantics of the code it's generating, and how it fits into the broader _system_, it will not be able to be trusted. I do not look forward to a world where I have to spend my time debugging AI-generated code.

Re: I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

#18

Post by avmich »

I think it's frequent when professionals in an area are skeptical about massive changes coming to them, even when those later prove to be significant.

However, if there are some courses, videos, detailed documentation about the new way of doing software development, I'd be interested to look at that.

Re: I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

#19

Post by TheCoelacanth »

goto11 wrote: post #9
im3w1l wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if the AI can provide both a program and a machine-verifiable proof of correctness though. Then all you have to manually verify is that the proof proves the right thing.

So the only thing a developer have to deliver is an unambiguous specification of what the program is supposed to do!

That sounds hard to do in a natural language. Maybe they could deliver the unambiguous specification in a formal language designed specifically for the purpose of specifying what programs are supposed to do.

Re: I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

#20

Post by TheCoelacanth »

acuozzo wrote: post #8
im3w1l wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if the AI can provide both a program and a machine-verifiable proof of correctness though. Then all you have to manually verify is that the proof proves the right thing.

How will the AI overcome the halting problem?

The same way that humans do. By redefining "doesn't halt" as "didn't halt before my patience ran out".
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