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Using LLMs at Oxide

rfd.shared.oxide.computer

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Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#181

Post by mft_ »

peheje wrote: post #172

I know I'm walking into a den of wolves here and will probably get buried in downvotes, but I have to disagree with the idea that using LLMs for writing breaks some social contract. If you hand me a financial report, I expect you used Excel or a calculator. I don't feel cheated that you didn't do long division by hand to prove your understanding. Writing is no different. The value isn't in how much you sweated while…

I’m with you, and further, I’d apply this (with some caveats) to images created by generative AI too.

I’ve come across a lot of people recently online expressing anger and revulsion at any images or artwork that have been created by genAI.

For relatively mundane purposes, like marketing materials, or diagrams, or the sort of images that would anyway be sourced from a low-cost image library, I don’t think there’s an inherent value to the “art”, and don’t see any problem with such things being created via genAI.

Possible consequences:

1) Yes, this will likely lead to loss/shifts in employment, but wasn’t progress ever like this? People have historically reacted strongly against many such shifts when advancing technology threatens some sector, but somehow we always figure it out and move on.

2) For genuine art, I suspect this will in time lead to a greater value being placed in demonstrably human-created originals. Related, there’s probably of money to be made by whoever can create a trusted system somehow capturing proof of human work, in a way that can’t be cheated or faked.

Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#182

Post by tarsinge »

christophilus wrote: post #84
frankest wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DreamWeaver absolutely destroyed the code with all kinds of tags and unnecessary stuff. Especially if you used the visual editor. It was fun for brainstorming but plain notepad with clean understandable code was far far better (and with the browser compatibility issues the only option if you were going to production).

After 25 or so years doing this, I think there are two kinds of developers: craftsmen and practical “does it get the job done” types. I’m the former. The latter seem to be what makes the world go round.

I am both, I own a small agency when I have to be practical, and have fun crafting code on the hobby side.

I think what craftsmen miss is the different goals. Projects fall on a spectrum from long lived app that constantly evolve with a huge team working on it to not opened again after release. In the latter, like movie or music production (or most video games), only the end result matters, the how is not part of the final product. Working for years with designers and artists really gave me perspective on process vs end result and what matter.

That doesn’t mean the end result is messy or doesn’t have craftsmanship. Like if you call a general contractor or carpenter for a specific stuff, you care that the end result is well made, but if they tell you that they built a whole factory for your little custom made project (the equivalent of a nice codebase), not only it doesn’t matter for you but it’ll be wildly overpriced and delayed. In my agency that means the website is good looking and bug free after being built, no matter how messy is the temporary construction site.

In contrast if you work on a SaaS or a long lived project (e.g. an OS) the factory (the code) is the product.

So to me when people say they are into code craftsmanship I think they mean in reality they are more interested in factory building than end product crafting.

Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#183

Post by dicytea »

thundergolfer wrote: post #4

A measured, comprehensive, and sensible take. Not surprising from Bryan. This was a nice line: > it’s just embarrassing — it’s as if the writer is walking around with their intellectual fly open. I think Oxide didn't include this in the RFD because they exclusively hire senior engineers, but in an organization that contains junior engineers I'd add something specific to help junior engineers understand how they shoul…

It's funny that I've seen people both argue that LLMs are exclusively useful only to beginners who know next to nothing and also that they are only useful if you are a 50+ YoE veteran at the top of their craft who started programming with punch cards since they were 5-years-old.

I wonder which of these camps are right.

Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#184

Post by govping »

thundergolfer wrote: post #4

A measured, comprehensive, and sensible take. Not surprising from Bryan. This was a nice line: > it’s just embarrassing — it’s as if the writer is walking around with their intellectual fly open. I think Oxide didn't include this in the RFD because they exclusively hire senior engineers, but in an organization that contains junior engineers I'd add something specific to help junior engineers understand how they shoul…

The craft vs practical tension with LLMs is interesting. We've found LLMs excel when there's a clear validation mechanism - for security research, the POC either works or it doesn't. The LLM can iterate rapidly because success is unambiguous.

Where it struggles: problems requiring taste or judgment without clear right answers. The LLM wants to satisfy you, which works great for 'make this exploit work' but less great for 'is this the right architectural approach?'

The craftsman answer might be: use LLMs for the systematic/tedious parts (code generation, pattern matching, boilerplate) while keeping human judgment for the parts that matter. Let the tool handle what it's good at, you handle what requires actual thinking.

Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#185

Post by leobg »

rgoulter wrote: post #23

> LLM-generated writing undermines the authenticity of not just one’s writing but of the thinking behind it as well. I think this points out a key point.. but I'm not sure the right way to articulate it. A human-written comment may be worth something, but an LLM-generated is cheap/worthless. The nicest phrase capturing the thought I saw was: "I'd rather read the prompt". It's probably just as good to let an LLM gener…

> I'd rather read the prompt.

That’s what I think when I see a news headline. What are you writing? Who cares. WHY are you writing it — that is what I want to know.

Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#186

Post by Libidinalecon »

peheje wrote: post #172

I know I'm walking into a den of wolves here and will probably get buried in downvotes, but I have to disagree with the idea that using LLMs for writing breaks some social contract. If you hand me a financial report, I expect you used Excel or a calculator. I don't feel cheated that you didn't do long division by hand to prove your understanding. Writing is no different. The value isn't in how much you sweated while…

Totally agree. The output is what matters.

At this point, who really cares what the person who sees everything as "AI slop" thinks?

I would rather just interact with Gemini anyway. I don't need to read/listen to the "AI slop hunter" regurgitate their social media feed and NY Times headlines back to me like a bad language model.

Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#187

Post by IshKebab »

don-bright wrote: post #120
csb6 wrote: post #102

Strange to see no mention of potential copyright violations found in LLM-generated code (e.g. LLMs reproducing code from Github verbatim without respecting the license). I would think that would be a pretty important consideration for any software development company, especially one that produces so much free software.

Also since LLM generated content is not copyrightable what happens to code you publish as Copyleft license? The entire copyleft system is based on the idea of a human holding copyright to copyleft code. Is a big chunk of it, the LLM part, basically public domain? How do you ensure theres enough human content to make it copyrightable and hence copyleftable….

> since LLM generated content is not copyrightable

That's not how it works. If you ask an LLM to write Harry Potter and it writes something that is 99% the same as Harry Potter, it isn't magically free of copyright. That would obviously be insane.

The legal system is still figuring out exactly what the rules are here but it seems likely that it's going to be on the LLM user to know if the output is protected by copyright. I imagine AI vendors will develop secondary search thingies to warn you (if they haven't already), and there will probably be some "reasonable belief" defence in the eventual laws.

Either way it definitely isn't as simple as "LLM wrote it so we can ignore copyright".

Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#188

Post by K0nserv »

philippta wrote: post #145

> LLM-generated code should not be reviewed by others if the responsible engineer has not themselves reviewed it. To extend that: If the LLM is the author and the responsible engineer is the genuine first reviewer, do you need a second engineer at all? Typically in my experience one review is enough.

More eyes are better, but more importantly code review is also about knowledge dissemination. If only the original author and the LLM saw the code you have a bus factor of 1. If another person reviews the bus factor is closer to 2.

Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#189

Post by Mtinie »

dicytea wrote: post #183
thundergolfer wrote: post #4

A measured, comprehensive, and sensible take. Not surprising from Bryan. This was a nice line: > it’s just embarrassing — it’s as if the writer is walking around with their intellectual fly open. I think Oxide didn't include this in the RFD because they exclusively hire senior engineers, but in an organization that contains junior engineers I'd add something specific to help junior engineers understand how they shoul…

It's funny that I've seen people both argue that LLMs are exclusively useful only to beginners who know next to nothing and also that they are only useful if you are a 50+ YoE veteran at the top of their craft who started programming with punch cards since they were 5-years-old. I wonder which of these camps are right.

Both camps, for different reasons.

For novices, LLMs are infinitely patient rubber ducks. They unstick the stuck; helping people past the coding and system management hurdles that once required deep dives through Stack Overflow and esoteric blog posts. When an explanation doesn’t land, they’ll reframe until one does. And because they’re confidently wrong often enough, learning to spot their errors becomes part of the curriculum.

For experienced engineers, they’re tireless boilerplate generators, dynamic linters, and a fresh set of eyes at 2am when no one else is around to ask. They handle the mechanical work so you can focus on the interesting problems.

The caveat for both: intentionality matters. They reward users who know what they’re looking for and punish those who outsource judgment entirely.

Re: Using LLMs at Oxide

#190

Post by [deleted] »

thebruce87m wrote: post #170
ghurtado wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've been doing it for that long (about as long as I have), then surely you remember all the times you had to clean up after the "git 'er done" types. I'm not saying they don't have their place, but without us they would still be making the world go round. Only backwards.

> all the times you had to clean up after the "git 'er done" types It’s lovely to have the time to do that. This time comes once the other type of engineer has shipped the product and turned the money flow on. Both types have their place.

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