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A coder considers the waning days of the craft

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Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#101

Post by somewhereoutth »

Philpax wrote: post #85
fzeroracer wrote: post #58

Much like how many people predicted we'd all be driving flying cars, the people predicting that coding will be replaced by AI just isn't realistic. Primarily because these AI models can literally only exist as long as there's humans constantly creating code for it to read (see: steal) in the first place. AI cannot sustain itself trained on AI work. If new languages, engines etc pop up it cannot synthesize new forms o…

> AI cannot sustain itself trained on AI work. This isn’t true. You can train LLMs entirely on synthetic data and get strong results. [0] > If new languages, engines etc pop up it cannot synthesize new forms of coding without that code having existed in the first place. You can describe the semantics to a LLM, have it generate code, tell it what went wrong (i.e. with compiler feedback), and then train on that. For an…

> They’re only going to get better from here.

Every AI apology seems to include this statement. It is more likely that LLMs have already hit a local maximum, and the next iterations will provide diminishing incremental returns - if anything at all.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#103

Post by advaith08 »

layman51 wrote: post #96

I’m so confused by this article’s comparison of GPT-4 to a powerful Go or chess engine. First, is coding some sort of competition like Go or chess? I have heard of competitive programming or code golf, but have little clue how that compares to “the craft of code” or why using GPT-4 diminishes it. Is it cheating if I use GPT-4’s assistance to write code? On the other hand, I do see why it would be harmful for people w…

I think the point of the comparison with chess is to show what happens when AI becomes vastly better than humans at something. GPT4 is not vastly better than humans at coding, but the author is using chess as an analogy to visualize what the world might look like if these GPTs continue to get better

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#104

Post by dekhn »

fzeroracer wrote: post #74
atleastoptimal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think juniors are replaceable but seniors won't be in the near future? Is there some limit where AI just can't get better? That's like seeing the first prototype car ever built, which can go 20 miles per hour, and saying "Cars will never replace horses that can go 21 miles per hour"

Do you believe individuals will drive flying cars in the next 10 years? How about 20? 40? People were predicting we'd have flying cars for over 50 years now, why don't we have them yet?

Flying cars. You mean, like personal aircraft? That's already a thing. Or cars that can drive on a highway but also fly? Besides being impractical from an engineering standpoint, I don't think there's an actual market large enough to sustain the development and marketing costs.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#106

Post by golergka »

danparsonson wrote: post #70
qup wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be amazing if anyone can request any basic program they want. Totally amazing if they can request any complex program. I cannot really envision a more empowering thing for the common person. It should really upset the balance of power. I think we'll see, soon, that we've only just started building with code. As a lifelong coder, I cannot wait to see the day when anyone can program anything.

From my experience, most people have only the vaguest idea of what they want, and no clue about the contradictions or other problems inherent in their idea. That is the real value that a good software engineer provides - finding and interpreting the requirements of a person who doesn't understand software, so that someone who does can build the right thing.

Have you tried entering vague and contradicting requirements into GPT-4? It's actually really great at exactly this.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#107

Post by kragen »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #62
kragen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've fired a lot of negativity at people for treating the entropy monster as a trustworthy information source. it's a waste of my time to prove it wrong to their satisfaction. it's great at creativity and recall but shitty at accuracy, and sometimes accuracy is what counts most

I know it sucks now and I agree GPT-4 is not a replacement for coders. However the leap between GPT-3 and 4 indicates that by the 6 level, if improvements continue, it'll reach the scope and accuracy we expect from highly paid skilled humans. It's only a guess people make that AI improvements will stop at some arbitrary point, and since that point seems to always be a few steps down from the skill level of the person…

plausible, but also i think a highly paid skilled person will do a lot worse if not allowed to test their code, run a compiler or linter, or consult the reference manual, so gpt-4 can get a lot more effective at this even without getting any smarter

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#108

Post by golergka »

ryandrake wrote: post #86
teg4n_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI taking over one of the only professions able to afford someone a proper middle class existence is pretty shitty. It will be great for capitalists though.

This is the real point. If the profits from AI (or robots) replacing Job X were distributed among the people who used to do Job X, I don't think anyone would mind. In fact it would be great for society! But that's not what's going to happen. The AI (and robots) will be owned by the Shrinking Few, all the profits and benefits will go to the owners, and the people who used to do Job X will have to re-skill to gamble on…

> If the profits from AI (or robots) replacing Job X were distributed among the people who used to do Job X, I don't think anyone would mind.

Why on Earth would you expect something so unjust and unfair? Do you expect to pay a tax to former travel agents when you buy a plane ticket online? Do you pay to descendants of calculators (as in profession — the humans who did manual calculations) every time you use a modern computer?

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