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Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs

geoffreylitt.com

151–160 of 290 posts

Re: Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs

#151

I'm very curious if a toggle would be useful that would display a heatmap of a source file showing how surprising each token is to the model. Red tokens are more likely to be errors, bad names, or wrong comments.

Sounds great.

I'd like to see more contextually meaningful refactoring tools. Like "Remove this dependency" or "Externalize this code with a callback".

And refactoring shouldn't be done by generatively rewriting the code, but as a series of guaranteed equivalent transformations of the AST, each of which should be committed separately.

The AI should be used to analyse the value of the transformation and filter out asinine suggestions, not to write code in itself.

Re: Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs

#153
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting downvoted - and flagged - because you're repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines. You may want to consider whether that's a path you want to continue.

Not sure you understand what has been going on but thanks for your concern.

What I understand is that if this has already gotten two of your comments killed, and will eventually get your account banned if you keep it up. I'm only bothering with this at all because I see from your profile that you make reasonable comments quite regularly.

Re: Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs

#154
I think there's room for a mixture of both use-cases. I think personally programming is far more like being a mixture of a pilot and an engineer. There are times, like in this article where it's far more useful to have a HUD, while i'm focused, i'd much rather have a better eye on things that are interesting to me. I often find things like cursor do the opposite - they slow down your processing time, you shift into an environment that often feels like i'm correcting a junior engineers work rather than expanding my knowledge of the codebase.

For example, if i'm working on authentication logic, i'd much rather see a smart heads up display, you look at a function and get advice on where this might mess other things up in the codebase, edge cases, etc. A smarter form of current IDES that doesn't mean you click through 50 different files to work out that this third party package doesn't work on specific code. A HUD in this case is ideal.

But I find there's a more detailed, slower development, I still really often use the chat function on claude mixed with Obsidian to hold bits of information i've found useful, this is more related to getting a deeper understanding of certain concepts. As a stupid developer, I often find I might need something explained 20 times in 20 different ways, and actually a predictive text model is perfect in so many circumstances to explain a massive algorithm step by step. It's ideal for things like shader code, where I might come back to it 6 months later and want to work out what was in my head at the time, a historic chat is perfect for those things.

There's definitely a balance to be struck, I think now that the hype cycle is peaking we can hopefully seperate the profit seeking AI tools from the useful day to day knowledge expansion. Currently it feels like the discovery of perspective in the reneissance - instead of using it to further advancements, we're attempting to sell perspective courses to people.

Re: Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs

#155
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure you understand what has been going on but thanks for your concern.

What I understand is that if this has already gotten two of your comments killed, and will eventually get your account banned if you keep it up. I'm only bothering with this at all because I see from your profile that you make reasonable comments quite regularly.

Consider that I'm being reasonable.

Re: Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, not surprising. Parent changed their text but they are just as wrong.

[flagged]

I do wish I could see who downvotes. If I ever criticise Google or Amazon, immediate downvoting without comment occurs.

Re: Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs

#159

I'm very curious if a toggle would be useful that would display a heatmap of a source file showing how surprising each token is to the model. Red tokens are more likely to be errors, bad names, or wrong comments.

[flagged]

Could you elaborate, please?

Re: Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs

#160

Love the idea & spitballing ways to generalize to coding.. Thought experiment: as you write code, an LLM generates tests for it & the IDE runs those tests as you type, showing which ones are passing & failing, updating in real time. Imagine 10-100 tests that take The tests could appear in a separated panel next to your code, and pass/fail status in the gutter of that panel. As simple as red and green dots for tests t…

Besides generating the tests, automatically running tests on edit and showing the results inline is already a thing. I think it'd be better to do it the other way around, start with the tests and let the LLM implement it until all tests are green. Test driven development.
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