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We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

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Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#111

Post by danaris »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #62
softwaredoug wrote: post #11

Anyone else feel like we're cresting the LLM coding hype curve? Like a recognition that there's value there, but we're passing the frothing-at-the-mouth stage of replacing all software engineers?

I've been skeptical about LLMs being able to replace humans in their current state (which has gotten marginally better in the last 18 months), but let us not forget that GPT-3.5 (the first truly useful LLM) was only 3 years ago. We aren't even 10 years out from the initial papers about GPTs.

And yet, we're clearly way into the period of diminishing returns.

I'm sure there's still some improvements that can be made to the current LLMs, but most of those improvements are not in making the models actually better at getting the things they generate right.

If we want more significant improvements in what generative AI can do, we're going to need new breakthroughs in theory or technique, and that's not going to come by simply iterating on the transformers paper or throwing more compute at it. Breakthroughs, almost by definition, aren't predictable, either in when or whether they will come.

Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#112

Post by catigula »

Larrikin wrote: post #109
catigula wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trajectory is a replace all developers trajectory, you're just in the middle of the curve wondering why you're not at the end of it. The funny thing is you're clearly within the hyperbolic pattern that I've described. It could plateau, but denying that you're there is incorrect.

Where are you employed?

Why you ask a stranger on the internet for PII?

I'm genuinely curious as to what's going through your mind and if people readily give you this.

I suspect you're asking dishonestly but I can't simply assume that.

Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#113

Post by Larrikin »

catigula wrote: post #112
Larrikin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you employed?

Why you ask a stranger on the internet for PII? I'm genuinely curious as to what's going through your mind and if people readily give you this. I suspect you're asking dishonestly but I can't simply assume that.

Every single one of your posts from the past two weeks is hyping up AI or down voted for being highly uninformed about every topic that isn't LLM hype related. You talk like a marketer of AI, someone that works adjacent to the industry with a dependency on these tools being bought.

Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#114

Post by catigula »

Larrikin wrote: post #113
catigula wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you ask a stranger on the internet for PII? I'm genuinely curious as to what's going through your mind and if people readily give you this. I suspect you're asking dishonestly but I can't simply assume that.

Every single one of your posts from the past two weeks is hyping up AI or down voted for being highly uninformed about every topic that isn't LLM hype related. You talk like a marketer of AI, someone that works adjacent to the industry with a dependency on these tools being bought.

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

You should delete this comment.

Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#115

Post by theultdev »

fusslo wrote: post #82
BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maximum headcount for engineers is around 7, no more than that now. I used to have 20, If I survived having 65% of my colleagues laid off you'd better believe I wouldn't complain in public.

BigTTYGothGF is right I'd also be looking for a new job that values the skills I've spent a decade building. I wonder if the remaining engineers' salary increased by the salary of the laid off coworkers'

> I wonder if the remaining engineers' salary increased by the salary of the laid off coworkers'

Never does.

Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#116

Post by theshrike79 »

jsty wrote: post #74
andy99 wrote: post #69

This is a problem everywhere now, and not just in code. It now takes zero effort to produce something, whether code or a work plan or “deep research” and then lob it over the fence, expecting people to review and act upon it. It’s an extension of the asymmetric bullshit principle IMO, and I think now all workplaces / projects need norms about this.

It feels like reputation / identity are about to become far more critical in determining whether your contribution, of whatever form, even gets considered.

Web of Trust will make a comeback. Both personal and on actual websites.

If I can say I trust you, the websites you trust will be prioritised for me and marked as reliable (no AI slop, actual humans writing content).

Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#117

Post by jongjong »

listenallyall wrote: post #88
jongjong wrote: post #75

2 months ago, after I started using Claude Code on my side project, within the space of days, I went from not allowing a single line of AI code into my codebase to almost 100% AI-written code. It basically codes in my exact style and I know ahead of time what code I expect to see so reviewing is really easy. I cannot justify to myself writing code by hand when there is literally no difference in the output from how I…

I dont mean to question you personally, after all this is the internet, but comments like yours do make the reader think, if he has 5x'ed his coding, was he any good to begin with? I guess what I'm saying is, without knowing your baseline skill level, I dont know whether to be impressed by your story. Have you become a super-programmer, or is it just cleaning up stupid stuff that you shouldn't have been doing in the…

I have a computer science degree and quite experienced. In the last 10 years, I've created a few side projects and also worked as a senior engineer professionally. I was engineer #3 at what later became the #1 biggest Maths e-learning platform in my country. I later built a popular distributed open source WebSocket pub/sub system which auto-scales on Kubernetes (with load balancing and sharding). I lead the development of the P2P layer of a $300 million+ market cap crypto project in Germany. I wrote a multi-chain Decentralized Exchange from scratch along with a minimalist PoS blockchain with support for instant finality. Then I wrote a multi-tenant no-code serverless platform to build/host any kind of app. Then (in part to demonstrate the search and indexing capabilities of the serverless no-code platform), I used this platform to build a multi-tenant people/company search platform which allows users to crawl the web and tag data using vector embeddings using a BFS algorithm (current side project). I'm still running all these projects in parallel because they require very little maintenance. My blockchain nodes have been running for 4 years straight. I restarted a node twice in 4 years due to infrastructure issue so very reliable.

Obviously, I suck at business and marketing. I only had one relatively financially successful product (my open source project, ironically) but I'm definitely able to build features quickly and in a stable way according to spec.

Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#118

Post by keyle »

mavamaarten wrote: post #106
softwaredoug wrote: post #11

Anyone else feel like we're cresting the LLM coding hype curve? Like a recognition that there's value there, but we're passing the frothing-at-the-mouth stage of replacing all software engineers?

My opinion swings between hype to hate every day. Yesterday all suggestions / edits / answers were hallucinated garbage, and I was ready to remove the copilot plugin altogether. Today I was stuck at a really annoying problem for hours and hours. For shits and giggles I just gave Claude a stacktrace and a description and let it go ham. It produced an amazingly accurate thought train and found my issue, which was not w…

This is a hundred percent true. I felt the same.

What has helped has been to turn off ALL automatic AI, e.g. auto complete, and bind it to a shortcut key to show up on request... And forget it exists.

Until I feel I need it, and then it's throw shit at the wall type moment but we've all been there.

It does save a lot of time as a google on steroid, and wtf-solver. But it's a tool best kept in its box, with a safety lock.

Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#119

Post by dang »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #30

Essay is way more interesting than the title, which doesn't actually capture it.

Thanks for pointing this out—it made me take the time to find a sentence in the article body that could serve as a less baity title.

From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait" (note that word unless)

Re: We need a clearer framework for AI-assisted contributions to open source

#120

Post by solotronics »

andy99 wrote: post #69

This is a problem everywhere now, and not just in code. It now takes zero effort to produce something, whether code or a work plan or “deep research” and then lob it over the fence, expecting people to review and act upon it. It’s an extension of the asymmetric bullshit principle IMO, and I think now all workplaces / projects need norms about this.

This problem statement was actually where the idea for Proof of Work (aka mining) in bitcoin came from. It evolved out of the idea of requiring a computational proof of work for sending an email via cypherpunk remailers as a way of fighting spam. The idea being only a legitimate or determined sender would put in the "proof of work" to use the remailer.

I wonder how it would look if open source projects required $5 to submit a PR or ticket and then paid out a bounty to the successful or at least reasonable PRs. Essentially a "paid proof of legitimacy".

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