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Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

simonwillison.net

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Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#231

Post by casenmgreen »

simonw wrote: post #26
tantalor wrote: post #25

> it can optimize its own code This is an overstatement. There are still humans in the loop to do the prompt, apply the patch, verify, write tests, and commit. We're not even at intern-level autonomy here.

Plugging DeepSeek R1 into a harness that can apply the changes, compile them, run the tests and loop to solve any bugs isn't hard. People are already plugging it into existing systems like Aider that can run those kinds of operations.

How do you know you've got a bug, to tell the AI to fix it?

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#232

Post by simonw »

casenmgreen wrote: post #231
simonw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plugging DeepSeek R1 into a harness that can apply the changes, compile them, run the tests and loop to solve any bugs isn't hard. People are already plugging it into existing systems like Aider that can run those kinds of operations.

How do you know you've got a bug, to tell the AI to fix it?

You get really good at manual QA.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#233

Post by casenmgreen »

secondcoming wrote: post #81

That PR is a maintainer's nightmare. "Here's a massive bunch of AI generated code. LGTM. Let me know if there are any problems"

You can't fix it.

You ask the AI to fix it and hope, or you start again from scratch - which if an AI is making the code, might be just fine.

But I think you still need a type of task AI can do well - something which lends itself to auto-complete.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#234

Post by belter »

herval wrote: post #221
jeswin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I worry about junior developers. It will be a while before vocational programming courses retool to teach this new way of writing code, and these are going to be te…

This is my main worry with the entire AI trend too. We're creating a huge gap for those joining the industry right now, with markedly fewer job openings for junior people. Who will inherit the machine?

>Who will inherit the machine?

Extremely well paid human coders, capable of fixing the mistakes of the years preceding them...

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#235

Post by CamperBob2 »

hooverd wrote: post #85
CamperBob2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't be happy doing a robot's job either, at least not for long. In the ideal case, we won't be dependent on the unwilling labor of other humans at all. Would you do your current job for free? If not -- if you'd rather do something else with your productive life -- then it seems irrational to defend the status quo. One thing's for certain: ancient Marxist tropes about labor and capital don't bring any value to t…

Because billionaires think that you are a horse and that the best course of action is to turn you into glue while they hope AGI lets them live forever.

Billionaires don't think about you at all. That's what nobody seems to get.

We enjoy many luxuries unavailable even to billionaires only a few decades ago. For this trend to continue, the same thing needs to happen in other sectors that happened in (for example) the agricultural sector over the course of the 20th century: replacement of human workers by mass automation and superior organization.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#236

Post by Peacefulz »

jeswin wrote: post #86
simonw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Jobs are going to be lost unless there's somehow a demand for more applications." That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I think LLM assistance makes programmers significantly more productive, which makes…

> That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I worry about junior developers. It will be a while before vocational programming courses retool to teach this new way of writing code, and these are going to be te…

I personally think that having hands on keyboards is still going to be imperative. Anyone can have an idea, but not everyone is going to be able to articulate that idea to an AI model in a way that will produce high quality, secure software.

I'm by no means an expert, but I feel like you still need someone who understands underlying principles and best practices to create something of value.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#237

Post by hnthrow90348765 »

matsemann wrote: post #97
jeswin wrote: post #31

> 99% of the code in this PR [for llama.cpp] is written by DeekSeek-R1 I hope we can put to rest the argument that LLMs are only marginally useful in coding - which are often among the top comments on many threads. I suppose these arguments arise from (a) having used only GH copilot which is the worst tool, or (b) not having spent enough time with the tool/llm, or (c) apprehension. I've given up responding to these.…

I read that Meta is tasking all engineers with figuring out how they got owned by deepseek. Couldn't they just have asked an llm instead? After their claim of replacing all of us... I'm not too worried. If anything we're the last generation that knows how to debug and work through issues.

A fair amount has been written on how to debug things, so it's not like the next generation can't learn it by also asking the AI (maybe learn it more slowly if 'learning with AI' is found to be slower)

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#238

Post by simonw »

yobbo wrote: post #215
fragmede wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

take some process that you, or someone you know does right now that involves spreadsheets and copy-pasting between various apps. hiring a software engineer to build an app so it's just a [do-it] button previously didn't make sense because software engineer time was too expensive. Now, that app can be made, so the HR or whatever person doesn't need to waste their time on automatable tasks.

If their time was actually wasted, paying a few or several thousand dollars for a tool would have been profitable a long time ago. Usually, there are hidden payoffs that motivate things that seem like waste.

The people who are spending time manually doing a task that could be handled by a program are usually the exact same people who don't have the experience (or authority) to be able to say "this is a thing that could be automated with a tool if we paid a few thousand dollars to develop it".

Hiring someone to remodel a bathroom is hard enough, now try hiring a contract software engineer, especially when you don't have budget authority!

That said, I heard about a fire chief last year who had to spend two days manually copying and pasting from one CRM to another. I wish I could help people like that know when to pay someone to write a script!

I imagine even in that role figuring out how to hire someone so solve a problem would still take longer than manually crunching through that themselves.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#239

Post by belter »

jhsvsmyself wrote: post #118
jeswin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I worry about junior developers. It will be a while before vocational programming courses retool to teach this new way of writing code, and these are going to be te…

There are already courses that are centered around coding with AI.

> Courses that are centered around coding with AI.

Everybody is a Manager now?

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#240

Post by [deleted] »

20k wrote: post #139
WhitneyLand wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time AI achieves something new/productive/interesting, cue the apologists who chime in to say “well yeah but that really just decomposes into this stuff so it doesn’t mean much”. I don’t get why people don’t understand that everything decomposes into other things. You can draw the line for when AI will truly blow your mind anywhere you want, the point is the dominoes keep falling relentlessly and there’s no end…

The thing is, that's not true at all. AI is great for some tasks, and poor for other tasks. That's the reason to break it down like this, because people are trying to explain where AI will and won't revolutionise things, instead of following along with the already-popping AI bubble uncritically For example: AI's smash translation. They won't ever beat out humans, but as an automated solution? They rock. Natural langu…

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