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FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

vladimir.varank.in

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Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#111

Post by slopinthebag »

petcat wrote: post #107
slopinthebag wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author specifically said that they did not read the code or even test the output very thoroughly. It was intentionally just a naive toy they wanted to play around with. Yes and that's what I'm pointing out, they vibe coded it and the headline is somewhat misleading, although it's not the authors fault if you don't go read the article before commenting. But it does have to do with AI (obviously), and specificall…

I strongly suspect that somebody with domain knowledge around Wi-Fi drivers and OS kernel drivers could prompt the llm to spit out a lot more robust code than this guy was able to. That's not a knock on him, he was just trying to see what he could do. It's impressive what he actually accomplished given how little effort he put forth and how little knowledge he had about the subject.

Someone with domain knowledge could also just write the code instead of trying to get the stochastic prediction machine to generate it. I thought the whole point was to allow people without said expertise to generate it. After all, that seems to be the promise.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#112

Post by ctoth »

petcat wrote: post #107
slopinthebag wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author specifically said that they did not read the code or even test the output very thoroughly. It was intentionally just a naive toy they wanted to play around with. Yes and that's what I'm pointing out, they vibe coded it and the headline is somewhat misleading, although it's not the authors fault if you don't go read the article before commenting. But it does have to do with AI (obviously), and specificall…

I strongly suspect that somebody with domain knowledge around Wi-Fi drivers and OS kernel drivers could prompt the llm to spit out a lot more robust code than this guy was able to. That's not a knock on him, he was just trying to see what he could do. It's impressive what he actually accomplished given how little effort he put forth and how little knowledge he had about the subject.

@petcat Is your nickname a description or an instruction?

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#113

Post by tkiolp4 »

slopinthebag wrote: post #100
tkiolp4 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is: such apps wouldn’t need to exist if agents can provide in the future the same functionality for a fraction of the cost. Sure if ticketmaster is here to stay forever and keep their app up to date, we can keep using it. But what about new products? Would companies decide to build a single fixed app that all the users have to use, instead of, well, not building it? Sure the functionality would still need to…

> And typically the ui/ux is not the core value of companies Huh? The user experience is basically ALL of the core product of a company. If it's so easy for an AI to create ticket purchasing software that people can generate it themselves, then it's also true that the company can also use AI to generate that software for users who then don't need to generate it themselves. Obviously I think neither of these things ar…

> Huh? The user experience is basically ALL of the core product of a company.

Thats the case now, but I think it’s because there’s no other way around it nowadays. But if agents in the future provide a better or more natural ui/ux for many use cases, then companies core value will shift more into their inner core (which in software translates typically to the domain model)

> If it's so easy for an AI to create ticket purchasing software that people can generate it themselves, then it's also true that the company can also use AI to generate that software for users who then don't need to generate it themselves.

I think the generation of software per se will be transparent to the user. Users won’t think in terms of software created but wishes their agents make true.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#114

Post by Vegenoid »

snowhale wrote: post #64
octoberfranklin wrote: post #21

That AI was trained on the GPLv2 Linux source code, which does have a driver for your Wi-Fi. How is this not copyright laundering?

[dead]

You haven't addressed the parent's concern at all, which is that what the LLM was trained on, not what was fed into its context window. The Linux driver is almost certainly in the LLM's training data.

Also, the "spec" that the LLM wrote to simulate the "clean-room" technique is full of C code from the Linux driver.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#115

Post by diabllicseagull »

slopinthebag wrote: post #70
tkiolp4 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the future (in 10 years?) we are going to see a lot of disposable/throwaway software. I don’t know, imagine this: I need to buy tickets for a concert. I ask my AI agent that I want tickets. The agent creates code on the fly and uses it to purchase my tickets. The code could be simple curl command, or a full app with nice ui/ux. As a user I don’t need to see the code. If I want to buy more tickets the same…

Or, and hear me out here, you go to the existing site or app which sells concert tickets, press the purchase button, and then you have your tickets. Like what are we even doing here...

seriously. I don't even wanna compile code when binaries are available in a repository. the thought of everybody preferring vibe-coding something on their own over using something that's battle-tested and available to the collective is just crazy to me.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#116

Post by jacobr1 »

slopinthebag wrote: post #106
jacobr1 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it often is the case that when you break down what humans are doing, there are actual concrete tasks. If you can convert the tacit knowledge to decision trees and background references, you likely can get the AI to perform most non-creative tasks.

If you have to hold the LLM's hand to accomplish a task, using human intelligence to do so, you can't consider the task performed by AI.

I half agree. But two points: 1) if you can formalize your instructions ... then future instances can be fully automated. 2) You are still probably having the AI perform many sub-tasks. AI-skeptics regularly fall into this god-of-the-gaps trap. You aren't wrong that human-augmented AI isn't 100% AI ... but it still is AI-augmentation, and again, that sets the stage for point 1 - to enable later future full automation on long enough timecycles.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#117

Post by tkiolp4 »

slopinthebag wrote: post #110
kami23 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I do that if the gateway to the internet becomes these LLM interfaces? How is it not easier to ask or type 'buy me tickets for Les Mis'? In the ideal world it will just figure it out, or I frustratingly have to interact with a slightly different website to purchase tickets for each separate event I want to see. One of the benefits that I see is as much as I love tech and writing software, I really really do…

I'm sympathetic to this view too, but I don't think the solution is to have LLM's generate bespoke code to do it. We absolutely should be using them for more natural language interfaces tho.

Yeah, that can also work. But I don’t see the future of software is to keep building multimillion line of code systems in a semi manual way (with or without llms). I think we will reach a phase in which we’ll have to treat code as disposable. I don’t think we are there yet, though.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#118

Post by asenchi »

tkiolp4 wrote: post #82
slopinthebag wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, and hear me out here, you go to the existing site or app which sells concert tickets, press the purchase button, and then you have your tickets. Like what are we even doing here...

My point is: such apps wouldn’t need to exist if agents can provide in the future the same functionality for a fraction of the cost. Sure if ticketmaster is here to stay forever and keep their app up to date, we can keep using it. But what about new products? Would companies decide to build a single fixed app that all the users have to use, instead of, well, not building it? Sure the functionality would still need to…

So we burn the planet up to deploy individually craft UIs on demand? I mean, I've read your comment three times, and I just don't see it. If we end up in that future, we're doomed.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#119

Post by tkiolp4 »

whackernews wrote: post #109
tkiolp4 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the future (in 10 years?) we are going to see a lot of disposable/throwaway software. I don’t know, imagine this: I need to buy tickets for a concert. I ask my AI agent that I want tickets. The agent creates code on the fly and uses it to purchase my tickets. The code could be simple curl command, or a full app with nice ui/ux. As a user I don’t need to see the code. If I want to buy more tickets the same…

Aren’t we kinda realising that disposable/throwaway stuff is, like, bad? Why do we have to go down this wasteful and hyper-consumptive route AGAIN. Can we try and see the patterns here and move forwards?

Agree in general. I don’t see how making an agent create software is more wasteful than making dozens of engineers create the same thing. The latter seems more wasteful.

We have compilers creating binaries every single day. We don’t say thats wasteful.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#120

Post by slopinthebag »

tkiolp4 wrote: post #117
slopinthebag wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to this view too, but I don't think the solution is to have LLM's generate bespoke code to do it. We absolutely should be using them for more natural language interfaces tho.

Yeah, that can also work. But I don’t see the future of software is to keep building multimillion line of code systems in a semi manual way (with or without llms). I think we will reach a phase in which we’ll have to treat code as disposable. I don’t think we are there yet, though.

We probably need higher levels of abstraction, built upon more composable building blocks and more interplay between various systems. To me that requires less disposable code though.
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