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Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

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Re: Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

#141

Post by ori_b »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #107
ori_b wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing it yourself is how you build and maintain the muscles to do it yourself. If you only do it yourself when the LLM fails, how will you maintain those muscles?

I agree, and I can actively feel myself slipping (and perhaps more critically, not learning new skills I would otherwise have been forced to learn). It's a big problem, but somewhat orthogonal to "what is the quickest way to solve the task currently in front of me."

Which needs to be balanced with "How do I maintain my ability to keep solving tasks quickly?"

Re: Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

#142

Post by ori_b »

jjmarr wrote: post #128
ribosometronome wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we not teach kids math because calculators can handle it? Practically, though, how would someone become good at just the skills LLMs don't do well? Much of this discussion is about how that's difficult to predict, but even if you were a reliable judge of what sort of coding tasks LLMs would fail at, I'm not sure it's possible to only be good at that without being competent at it all.

> Should we not teach kids math because calculators can handle it? We don't teach kids how to use an abacus or a slide rule. But we teach positional representations and logarithms. The goal is theoretical concepts so you can learn the required skills if necessary. The same will occur with code. You don't need to memorize the syntax to write a for loop or for each loop, but you should understand when you might use eit…

Huh. I was taught how to use both an abacus and a slide rule as a kid, in the 90s.

Re: Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

#143

Post by ori_b »

Klathmon wrote: post #131
ribosometronome wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we not teach kids math because calculators can handle it? Practically, though, how would someone become good at just the skills LLMs don't do well? Much of this discussion is about how that's difficult to predict, but even if you were a reliable judge of what sort of coding tasks LLMs would fail at, I'm not sure it's possible to only be good at that without being competent at it all.

Should you never use a calculator because you want to keep your math skills high? There are a growing set of problems which feel like using a calculator for basic math to me. But also school is a whole other thing which I'm much more worried about with LLMs. Because there's no doubt in my mind I would have abused AI every chance I got if it were around when I was a kid, and I wouldn't have learned a damn thing.

I don't use calculators for most math because punching it in is slower than doing it in my head -- especially for fermi calculations. I will reach for a calculator when it makes sense, but because I don't use a calculator for everything, the number of places where I'm faster than a calculator grows over time. It's not particularly intentional, it just shook out that way.

And I hated mental math exercises as a kid.

Re: Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

#144

Post by solumunus »

rtpg wrote: post #61
simonw wrote: post #11

Using coding agents to track down the root cause of bugs like this works really well: > Three out of three one-shot debugging hits with no help is extremely impressive. Importantly, there is no need to trust the LLM or review its output when its job is just saving me an hour or two by telling me where the bug is, for me to reason about it and fix it. The approach described here could also be a good way for LLM-skepti…

I understand the pitch here ("it finds bugs! it's basically all upside because worst case there's no output anyways"), but I'm finding some of these agents to be ... uhhh... kind of agressive at trying to find the solution and end up missing the forest for the trees. And there's some "oh you should fix this" stuff which, while sometimes isn't _wrong_, is completely besides the point. The end result being these robots…

Communication with a person is more difficult and the feedback loop is much, much longer. I can almost instantly tell whether Claude has understood the mission or digested context correctly.

Re: Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

#146

Post by solumunus »

nicklaf wrote: post #90
bongodongobob wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you know it's wrong, tell it, and why. I don't get the expectation for one shotting everything 100% of the time. It's no different than bouncing ideas off a colleague.

It's painfully apparent when you've reached the limitations of an LLM to solve a problem it's ill-suited for (like a concurrency bug), because it will just keep spitting out non-sense, eventually going in circles or going totally off the rails.

And then one jumps in and solves the problem themself, like they’ve done for their entire career. Or maybe one hasn’t done that, and that’s who we hear complain so much? I’m not talking about you specifically, just in general.

Re: Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

#147

Post by dns_snek »

advael wrote: post #122
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, fair critique. EXCEPT… What did you have for AI three years ago? Jack fucking shit is what. Why is “wow that’s cool, I wonder what it’ll turn into” a forbidden phrase, but “there are clearly no experts on this topic but let me take a crack at it!!” important for everyone to comment on? One word: Standby. Maybe that’s two words.

With all due respect, "wow this is cool, I wonder what it'll turn into" is basically the mandatory baseline stance to take. I'm lucky that's where I'm still basically at, because anyone in a technical position who shows even mild reticence beyond that is likely to be unable to hold a job in the face of their bosses' frothing enthusiastic optimism about these technologies

Is it that bad out there? Yeah, I don't think I could last in a job that tries to force these tools into my workflow.

Re: Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

#148

Post by 9dev »

sciencejerk wrote: post #137
thadt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on what you find to be 'bad advice'? The author uses an LLM to find bugs and then throw away the fix and instead write the code he would have written anyway. This seems like a rather conservative application of LLMs. Using the 'shooting someone in the foot' analogy - this article is an illustration of professional and responsible firearm handling.

Layman in cryptotography (that's 99% of us at least) may be encouraged to deploy LLM generated crypto implementations, without understanding the crypto

If they consider doing that, they will without LLMs or with them. Raise your juniors right.

Re: Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

#149

Post by dns_snek »

simonw wrote: post #11

Using coding agents to track down the root cause of bugs like this works really well: > Three out of three one-shot debugging hits with no help is extremely impressive. Importantly, there is no need to trust the LLM or review its output when its job is just saving me an hour or two by telling me where the bug is, for me to reason about it and fix it. The approach described here could also be a good way for LLM-skepti…

This is no different than when LLMs write code. In both scenarios they often turn into bullshit factories that are capable, willing, and happy to write pages and pages of intricate, convincing-sounding explanations for bugs that don't exist, wasting everyone's time and testing my patience.

Re: Claude Code can debug low-level cryptography

#150

Post by shadyKeystrokes »

joshvm wrote: post #104
rtpg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the pitch here ("it finds bugs! it's basically all upside because worst case there's no output anyways"), but I'm finding some of these agents to be ... uhhh... kind of agressive at trying to find the solution and end up missing the forest for the trees. And there's some "oh you should fix this" stuff which, while sometimes isn't _wrong_, is completely besides the point. The end result being these robots…

When models start to forage around in the weeds, it's a good idea to restart the session and add more information to the prompt for what it should ignore or assume. For example in ML projects, Claude gets very worried that datasets aren't available or are perhaps responsible. Usually if you tell it outright where you suspect the bug to be (or straight up tell it, even if you're unsure) it will focus on that. Or, make…

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