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Building better AI tools

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Re: Building better AI tools

#131

Post by justlikereddit »

croes wrote: post #82
biophysboy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A retort you often hear is that prior technologies, like writing or the printing press, may have stunted our calligraphy or rhetorical skills, but they did not stunt our capacity to think. If anything, they magnified it! Basically, the whole Steve Jobs' bicycle-for-the-mind idea. My issue with applying this reasoning to AI is that prior technologies addressed bottlenecks in distribution, whereas this more directly at…

But AI also does the thinking. So if the printing press stunted our writing what will the thinking press stunt. https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-study-finds-relying-on-ai-kill...

Worst promise of AI isn't subverting thinking of those who try to think.

It's being an executor for those who doesn't think but can make up rules and laws.

Re: Building better AI tools

#132

Post by tumidpandora »

I wholeheartedly agree with OP, the article is very timely and illustrates the mis-direction of AI tooling clearly. I often find myself and my kids asking LLMs "don't tell me the answer, work with me to resolve it" that is a much richer experience than seeing a fully baked out response to my question. I hope we see grater adoption of OPs EDGE framework in AI interactions.

Re: Building better AI tools

#133

Post by margalabargala »

caconym_ wrote: post #128
margalabargala wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally disagree. Importing an external library into your code is like using a player piano. Heck, writing in a language you didn't personally invent is like using a player piano. Using AI doesn't make someone "not a programmer" in any new way that hasn't already been goalpost-moved around before.

> Heck, writing in a language you didn't personally invent is like using a player piano. Do you actually believe that any arbitrary act of writing is necessarily equivalent in creative terms to flipping a switch on a machine you didn't build and listening to it play music you didn't write? Because that's frankly insane.

Yes, the language comment was hyperbolic.

Importing a library someone else wrote basically is flipping a switch and getting software behavior you didn't write.

Frankly I don't see a difference in creative terms between writing an app that does that relies heavily on importing already-written libraries for a lot of the heavy lifting, and describing what you have in mind for to an LLM in sufficient detail that it is able to create a working version of whatever it is.

Actually can see an argument that both of those are also potentially equal, in creative terms, to writing the whole thing from scratch. If the author's goal was to write beautiful software, that's one thing, but if the author's goal is to create ? Then the existence and characteristics of is the measure of their creativity, not the method of construction.

Re: Building better AI tools

#134

Post by jazzyjackson »

0x457 wrote: post #80
donsupreme wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many analog to this IRL: 1) I can't remember the last time I write something meaningfully long with an actual pen/pencil. My handwriting is beyond horrible. 2) I can't no longer find my way driving without a GPS. Reading a map? lol

> I can't remember the last time I write something meaningfully long with an actual pen/pencil. My handwriting is beyond horrible. That's a skill that depends on motor functions of your hands, so it makes sense that it degrades with lack of practice. > I can't no longer find my way driving without a GPS. Reading a map? lol Pretty sure what that actually means in most cases is "I can go from A to B without GPS, but th…

> I'm sure you still these people skill can do,

I wonder if you’d make this kind of mistake writing by hand

Re: Building better AI tools

#135

Post by skydhash »

dimal wrote: post #130
taylorallred wrote: post #14

One thing that has always worried me about AI coding is the loss of practice. To me, writing the code by hand (including the boilerplate and things I've done hundreds of times) is the equivalent of Mr. Miyagi's paint-the-fence. Each iteration gets it deeper into your brain and having these patterns as a part of you makes you much more effective at making higher-level design decisions.

I still do a lot of refactoring by hand. With vim bindings it’s often quicker than trying to explain to a clumsy LLM how to do it. For me, refactoring is really the essence of coding. Getting the initial version of a solution that barely works —- that’s necessary but less interesting to me. What’s interesting is the process of shaping that v1 into something that’s elegant and fits into the existing architecture. Sand…

There are lots of project templates and generators that will get you close to where you can start writing business code and not just boilerplate.

Re: Building better AI tools

#136

Post by Footprint0521 »

Rumudiez wrote: post #89
drchiu wrote: post #40

Friends, we might very well be the last generation of developers who learned how to code.

I want to believe there will be a small contingent of old schoolers basically forver, even if it only shrinks over time. maybe newcomers or experienced devs who want to learn to more, or how to do what the machine is doing for them I think it'll be like driving: the automatic transmission, power brakes, and other tech made it more accessible but in the process we forgot how to drive. that doesn't mean nobody owns a m…

I’ve found from trial and error that when I have to manually type out the code it gives me (like BIOS or troubleshooting devices I can’t directly paste to lol) I ask more questions.

That combined with having to manually do it has helped me be able to learn how to do things on my own, compared to when I just copy paste or use agents.

And the more concepts you can break things in to, the better. From now on, I’ve started projects working with AI to make “phases” for projects for testability, traceability, and over understanding

My defacto has become using AI on my phone with pictures of screens and voicing questions, to try to force myself to use it right. When you can’t mindlessly copy paste, even though it might feel annoying in the moment, the learning that happens from that process saves so much time later from hallucination-holes!

Re: Building better AI tools

#138

Post by lknuth »

try_the_bass wrote: post #43
lknuth wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you disagree with the statement?

I think it's obvious they disagree with the statement. Why else would they be rejecting it? Why even ask this question?

I wonder why though. Aren't both of these things facts? I think you can justify using them anyways - which is what I'd be interested to talk about.

Re: Building better AI tools

#139

Post by caconym_ »

margalabargala wrote: post #133
caconym_ wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck, writing in a language you didn't personally invent is like using a player piano. Do you actually believe that any arbitrary act of writing is necessarily equivalent in creative terms to flipping a switch on a machine you didn't build and listening to it play music you didn't write? Because that's frankly insane.

Yes, the language comment was hyperbolic. Importing a library someone else wrote basically is flipping a switch and getting software behavior you didn't write. Frankly I don't see a difference in creative terms between writing an app that does that relies heavily on importing already-written libraries for a lot of the heavy lifting, and describing what you have in mind for to an LLM in sufficient detail that it is ab…

The real question is what you yourself are adding to the creative process. Importing libraries into a moderately complex piece of software you wrote yourself is analogous to including genai-produced elements in a collage assembled by hand, with additional elements added (e.g. painted) on top also by hand. But just passing off the output of some genai system as your own work is like forking somebody else's library on Github and claiming to be the author of it.

> If the author's goal was to write beautiful software, that's one thing, but if the author's goal is to create ? Then the existence and characteristics of is the measure of their creativity, not the method of construction.

What you are missing is that the nature of a piece of art (for a very loose definition of 'art') made by humans is defined as much by the process of creating it (and by developing your skills as an artist to the point where that act of creation is possible) as by whatever ideas you had about it before you started working on it. Vastly more so, generally, if you go back to the beginning of your journey as an artist.

If you just use genai, you are not taking that journey, and the product of the creative process is not a product of your creative process. Therefore, said product is not descended from your initial idea in the same way it would have been if you'd done the work yourself.

Re: Building better AI tools

#140

Post by Lerc »

taylorallred wrote: post #14

One thing that has always worried me about AI coding is the loss of practice. To me, writing the code by hand (including the boilerplate and things I've done hundreds of times) is the equivalent of Mr. Miyagi's paint-the-fence. Each iteration gets it deeper into your brain and having these patterns as a part of you makes you much more effective at making higher-level design decisions.

I don't get this with boilerplate. To me boilerplate code is the code that you have to write to satisfy some predefined conditions that has little to do with the semantics of the code I am actually writing. I'm fine with AI writing this stuff for me if it does it reliably, or if the scale is small enough that I can easily spot and fix the errors. I don't see that aspect of coding to be much more than typing.

On the other hand I do a lot more fundamental coding than the median. I do quite a few game jams, and I am frequently the only one in the room who is not using a game engine.

Doing things like this I have written so many GUI toolkits from scratch now that It's easy enough for me to make something anew in the middle of a jam.

For example https://nws92.itch.io/dodgy-rocket In my experience it would have been much harder to figure out how to style scrollbars to be transparent with in-theme markings using an existing toolkit than writing a toolkit from scratch. This of course changes as soon as you need a text entry field. I have made those as well, but they are subtle and quick to anger.

I do physics engines the same way, predominantly 2d, (I did a 3d physics game in a jam once but it has since departed to the Flash afterlife). They are one of those things that seem magical until you've done it a few times, then seem remarkably simple. I believe John Carmack experienced that with writing 3d engines where he once mentioned quickly writing several engines from scratch to test out some speculative ideas.

I'm not sure if AI presents an inhibiter here any more than using an engine or a framework. They both put some distance between the programmer and the result, and as a consequence the programmer starts thinking in terms of the interface through which they communicate instead of how the result is achieved.

On the other hand I am currently using AI to help me write a DMA chaining process. I initially got the AI to write the entire thing. The final code will use none of that emitted output, but it was sufficient for me to see what actually needed to be done. I'm not sure if I could have done this on my own, AI certainly couldn't have done it on it's own. Now that I have (almost (I hope)) done it once in collaboration with AI, I think I could now write it from scratch myself should I need to do it again.

I think AI, Game Engines, and Frameworks all work against you if you are trying to do something abnormal. I'm a little amazed that Monument Valley got made using an engine. I feel like they must have fought the geometry all the way.

I think this jam game I made https://lerc.itch.io/gyralight would be a nightmare to try and implement in an engine. Similarly I'm not sure if an AI would manage the idea of what is happening here.

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