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AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

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Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#21

Post by ares623 »

ctenb wrote: post #20
ares623 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had a magic wand I would wish for 2 parallel open source communities diverging from today. One path continues on the track it has always been on, human written and maintained. The other is fully on the AI track. Massive PRs with reviewers rubber stamping them. I’d love to see which track comes out ahead. Edit: in fact, perhaps there are open source projects already fully embracing AI authored contributions?

I agree. It would also work out like a long term supervised learning process though. Humans showing how it's really done, and AI companies taking that as a gold standard for training and development of AI.

I'm not so sure. There's already decades of data available for the existing process.

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#23

Post by dudinax »

skeledrew wrote: post #18
lambda_foo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. I guess it’s open source but it’s not in the spirit of open source contribution. Plus it puts the burden of reviewing the AI slop onto the project maintainers and the future maintenance is not the submitters problem. So you’ve generated lots of code using AI, nice work that’s faster for you but slower for everyone else around you.

Another consideration here that hits both sides at once is that the maintainers on the project are few. So while it could be a great burden pushing generated code on them for review, it also seems a great burden to get new features done in the first place. So it boils down to the choice of dealing with generated code for X feature, or not having X feature for a long time, if ever.

With the understanding that generated code for X may never be mergable given the limited resources.

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#24

Post by fzeroracer »

bravetraveler wrote: post #4

"Challenge me on this" while meaning "endure the machine, actually" I guess the proponents are right. We'll use LLMs one way or another, after all. They'll become one.

"Challenge me on this"

Five seconds later when challenged on why AI did something

"Beats me, AI did it and I didn't question it."

Really embarrassing stuff all around. I feel bad for open source maintainers.

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#26

Post by ctenb »

ares623 wrote: post #21
ctenb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It would also work out like a long term supervised learning process though. Humans showing how it's really done, and AI companies taking that as a gold standard for training and development of AI.

I'm not so sure. There's already decades of data available for the existing process.

That is true, but it doesn't help for new languages, frameworks, etc

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#27

Post by andai »

autumnstwilight wrote: post #7

>>> Here's my question: why did the files that you submitted name Mark Shinwell as the author? >>> Beats me. AI decided to do so and I didn't question it. Really sums the whole thing up...

I thought you were paraphrasing. What in blazes...

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#28

Post by armchairhacker »

djoldman wrote: post #5

Maintainers and repo owners will get where they want to go the fastest by not referring to what/who "generated" code in a PR. Discussions about AI/LLM code being a problem solely because AI/LLM is not generally a productive conversation. Better is to critique the actual PR itself. For example, needs more tests, needs to be broken up, doesn't follow our protocols for merging/docs, etc. Additionally, if there isn't a c…

I agree, but @gasche brings up real points in https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/pull/14369#issuecomment-35565.... In particular I found these important:

- Copyright issues. Even among LLM-generated code, this PR is particularly suspicious, because some files begin with the comment “created by [someone’s name]”

- No proposal. Maybe the feature isn’t useful enough to be worth the tech debt, maybe the design doesn’t follow conventions and/or adds too much tech debt

- Not enough tests

- The PR is overwhelmingly big, too big for the small core team that maintains OCaml

- People are already working on this. They’ve brainstormed the design, they’re breaking the task into smaller reviewable parts, and the code they write is trusted more than LLM-generated code

Later, @bluddy mentions a design issue: https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/pull/14369#issuecomment-35568...

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#30

Post by kreetx »

ares623 wrote: post #25
raincole wrote: post #22

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=45982416 (Not so)interestingly, the PR author even advertised this work on HN.

what’s stopping the author from maintaining their own fork i wonder?

Nothing!

Another question though when reading his blog: is he himself full AI? as in, not even a human writing those blog posts. Reads a bit like that.

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