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What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

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Re: What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

#211

Post by n4r9 »

corethree wrote: post #166
n4r9 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on the comment about "algebraic designs"? When I interact with an LLM it feels like I'm speaking to someone who lacks inherent conceptual understanding, but is doing their utmost best to bullshit me. This is problematic when it comes to algorithmic thinking. I sometimes need to solve problems that involve tweaking existing algorithms in somewhat novel ways. For example "k-medoid clustering but with v…

How is what you're doing mathematical? I mean you can call CS "math", but then I don't know what you mean by more "mathematical." Traditional cs algos are not what I term as more mathy from my pov. Maybe you can call stats "mathy" but this is more applied math and not too different from what "builders" do. Also what you're doing here is asking chatGPT for the answer. chatGPT is more effective via collaboration. Meani…

To some extent I agree with you, in that all software engineers have to think about refactoring and time complexity, involving a logical or mathematical style of thinking. However, there's definitely a spectrum of how distinctly mathematical the work of a software engineer is.

A lot of front-end development for example does not require familiarity with any algorithms, formulae or mathematical structures. You might need to reason about large systems and have a rough idea of when hashmaps are useful, but the bulk of the work is constructing an interface according to functional business requirements. I frequently see comments here along the lines of "why am I being interviewed about algorithms when I'll never use them in my job".

A more mathematically oriented developer may be in the business of modelling and predictions. They may be confronted with a novel real world problem involving traffic, or trading, or electricity networks, that potentially no one has tried to solve before. They may be required to find a mathematical structure that closely approximates real world behaviour, implement that structure via code, and deploy a continuous model which allows their client to analyse and project.

Of course, you also have academic mathematicians using software like Maple or SageMath to assist with their research. This is another level more mathematical. Perhaps what you're getting at is that people can ask ChatGPT questions like "write me some Sage code to get the Delaunay triangulation of this set of points". I totally agree that it can probably do well at these tasks.

Re: What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

#212

Post by corethree »

n4r9 wrote: post #211
corethree wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is what you're doing mathematical? I mean you can call CS "math", but then I don't know what you mean by more "mathematical." Traditional cs algos are not what I term as more mathy from my pov. Maybe you can call stats "mathy" but this is more applied math and not too different from what "builders" do. Also what you're doing here is asking chatGPT for the answer. chatGPT is more effective via collaboration. Meani…

To some extent I agree with you, in that all software engineers have to think about refactoring and time complexity, involving a logical or mathematical style of thinking. However, there's definitely a spectrum of how distinctly mathematical the work of a software engineer is. A lot of front-end development for example does not require familiarity with any algorithms, formulae or mathematical structures. You might ne…

Modelling stuff sounds like data science. It's a term they often use and it sounds very much like the same deliverables you mentioned. I've never seen a data scientist term themselves as more mathematically oriented. Also let's not play around, what you actually meant to say mathematically "superior". That much is clear. Sounds like you know stats and you think that makes you more "mathematical".

You also talk about things like traffic. Modelling traffic is mathematical? Sounds like a simulation to me. Man take a look at GTA. That game is almost entirely made by builder engineers creating simulations. It's the same shit and likely far more advanced then what any data scientist can come up with.

Anyway from your example and from what Ive seen it sounds like you're still doing the same thing. CS algorithms. You're just using algorithms that aren't likely very popular or very specific to data and stats. But adjusting stuff like k-means clustering still sounds like regular cs stuff to me.

There's no point in calling it more "mathematical" because it's not. The builder engineer who wrote all the systems in GTA or even say red dead redemption use a ton of "math" even and they don't term themselves more "mathematical" even though their simulations are likely more complex than anything you will ever build.

That's why when you called your self mathematically superior (again don't deny this.. we all know what you really mean here) I thought you were talking actual math. Because if you looked at a math equation it doesn't look anything like an algorithm. Math equations are written as a single expression. Math equations model the world according to a series of formula. It's very different to a cs algorithm.

Mathematical oriented programming involves largely the same thing and using algebras of mathematics.

If you're not doing this just call it data science instead of trying to call yourself more "mathematical". If you truly were more mathematically oriented you would know what I'm talking about.

Geeze some guy writing "models" and doing some applied math+stats like what every other freaking programmer out there is doing and he calls himself more "mathematically oriented."

Re: What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

#213

Post by n4r9 »

bumbledraven wrote: post #125
n4r9 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on the comment about "algebraic designs"? When I interact with an LLM it feels like I'm speaking to someone who lacks inherent conceptual understanding, but is doing their utmost best to bullshit me. This is problematic when it comes to algorithmic thinking. I sometimes need to solve problems that involve tweaking existing algorithms in somewhat novel ways. For example "k-medoid clustering but with v…

An LLM is going to be most helpful for topics that came up a lot during training. What you're discussing doesn't sound like it falls into that category.

I'd agree with that. I'd even go a step further and say that most of my work and things I'm interested in coding don't fall into that category. I have absolutely nothing against people who do find it useful, but I'm keen to reassure user badrabbit that they're not a jerk for not being interested in using LLMS.

Re: What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

#214

Post by n4r9 »

corethree wrote: post #212
n4r9 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent I agree with you, in that all software engineers have to think about refactoring and time complexity, involving a logical or mathematical style of thinking. However, there's definitely a spectrum of how distinctly mathematical the work of a software engineer is. A lot of front-end development for example does not require familiarity with any algorithms, formulae or mathematical structures. You might ne…

Modelling stuff sounds like data science. It's a term they often use and it sounds very much like the same deliverables you mentioned. I've never seen a data scientist term themselves as more mathematically oriented. Also let's not play around, what you actually meant to say mathematically "superior". That much is clear. Sounds like you know stats and you think that makes you more "mathematical". You also talk about…

Statistics isn't my strongest area. But I do have a doctorate in quantum information theory, so I have some idea of what it means to be mathematical.

Data science definitely forms part of what I do, as my employer stores a lot of data that we use to estimate various parameters. But there's also work on creating bespoke routines for solving vehicle routing problems in niche domains, which I wouldn't really class as data science.

Thanks for the discussion, anyway. I'm not interested in being insulted.

Re: What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

#215

Post by corethree »

n4r9 wrote: post #214
corethree wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modelling stuff sounds like data science. It's a term they often use and it sounds very much like the same deliverables you mentioned. I've never seen a data scientist term themselves as more mathematically oriented. Also let's not play around, what you actually meant to say mathematically "superior". That much is clear. Sounds like you know stats and you think that makes you more "mathematical". You also talk about…

Statistics isn't my strongest area. But I do have a doctorate in quantum information theory, so I have some idea of what it means to be mathematical. Data science definitely forms part of what I do, as my employer stores a lot of data that we use to estimate various parameters. But there's also work on creating bespoke routines for solving vehicle routing problems in niche domains, which I wouldn't really class as da…

No one is interested in being insulted. But you only feel insulted because what I said is 100 percent true.

"Bespoke routines for vehicular routing problems" lol. I mean phrases like that reveal what you think of yourself as.

You're writing simulations. That's all. "Bespoke" lol. And those simulations have lower fidelity then a video game like GTA which likely does traffic at higher levels of fidelity and real time with a renderer.

I have a doctorate in mathematics. Prior to that I've done work in cs. Doesn't mean shit. I don't name drop that crap to pretend to be superior.

Re: What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

#216

Post by CodeL »

brandall10 wrote: post #146
wbm1 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more personal value it holds, the more risk it has. Imagine gaining access to this digital daimon of someone, it'll be like accessing their most inner thoughts. The upside however could be exponential personal growth. I've seen many examples of real life twins that basically live as a superhuman individual. E.g. the Liberman twins. This tech could be a digital equivalent of that.

Small correction - Daniil and David Liberman are just brothers, not twins.

[dead]

Re: What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

#217

Post by andsoitis »

chx wrote: post #165
andsoitis wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US alone some 300 000 people died from homemade artisan anti vaxx propaganda, it's very scary to think what will happen when GPT switches that to industrial scale. From a human moral viewpoint this is indeed despicable and worth considering mitigation. I am optimistic though that in the grand unfolding that natural selection brings, it will pressure an elevation of rationality, but with the cost of some huma…

Natural selection is not fast enough. It operates over many generations but we know climate change is driving the expansion of zoonotic diseases. Consider within the last generation -- generally understood to be 25 years -- we had a SARS outbreak, swine flu, SARS-CoV-2, mpox outbreak just to name the big ones. It is extremely likely we will have more within the next 25.

> Natural selection is not fast enough. It operates over many generations but we know climate change is driving the expansion of zoonotic diseases. Consider within the last generation -- generally understood to be 25 years -- we had a SARS outbreak, swine flu, SARS-CoV-2, mpox outbreak just to name the big ones. It is extremely likely we will have more within the next 25.

Perhaps I should not have used "natural selection" but instead a more generic evolutionary principle but that isn't prodicated on biological hereditary. Since the type symbolic reasons arose in our brain matter, our bodies have been vehicles for evolution that transcends the rhythm of offspring.

Re: What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

#218

Post by mercer »

croo wrote: post #83

I'll tell you my vision which is kinda long term - like 20-30 year from now on. I think the future is that everyone will have their own personalized AI assistant on their phone. Internet as it is will be mostly useless because only robots will be able to wade through the generated shit ocean and the next generation will see it as the current see the TV - unimportant old boring low-entropy data which is not entertaini…

Meanwhile, the common folk will sit in the iCubicle homes with just AirGlasses and subscriptions for everything, including the virtual furniture and the Fortnite Metaverse as the then-facebook to glue it all together.

I'm honestly a little excited about our Snow Crash future.

Re: What will LLM-powered software look like in the medium-term future?

#219

Post by anupamchugh »

ypeterholmes wrote: post #202
geuis wrote: post #13

Ok. I appreciate they didn't use Medium as a blog post. There's a lot of good engineering knowledge currently locked behind the Medium "sign in" interface. It's dumb and stupid. But just to voice an opinion, please kill the lengthy paragraph levels of fluff in blog posts. I don't want to say my opinion is influenced by shitty blog recipes and research papers, but it is. So stop it. Just say what you need to say in bu…

I write on Medium and there's no paywall. The paywall is a choice to monetize.

There is a “sign up for membership” soft paywall on all stories.
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