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FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

vladimir.varank.in

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Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#241

Post by kamaal »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #51
tkiolp4 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the future (in 10 years?) we are going to see a lot of disposable/throwaway software. I don’t know, imagine this: I need to buy tickets for a concert. I ask my AI agent that I want tickets. The agent creates code on the fly and uses it to purchase my tickets. The code could be simple curl command, or a full app with nice ui/ux. As a user I don’t need to see the code. If I want to buy more tickets the same…

This is also where I think we end up. If the behavior of the system is specified well enough, then the code itself is cheap and throwaway. Why have a static system that is brittle to external changes when you can just reconstruct the system on the fly? Might be quite awhile before you can do this with large systems but we already see this on smaller contextual scales such as Claude Code itself

>>If the behavior of the system is specified well enough, then the code itself is cheap and throwaway. Why have a static system that is brittle to external changes when you can just reconstruct the system on the fly?

You mean to say if the unit and functional tests cases are given the system must generate code for you? You might want to look at Prolog in that case.

>>Might be quite awhile before you can do this with large systems but we already see this on smaller contextual scales such as Claude Code itself

We have been able to do something like this reliably for like 50 years now.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#242

Post by bandrami »

matthewfcarlson wrote: post #186

I know this is me coming from my spoiled perspective of Linux and macOS, but the advice of running a VM that manages the WiFi hardware and passing it back to the OS seems insane to me

Architecturally it makes a kind of sense given the way firmware operates (a lot of your peripherals are mini-computers inside your computer)

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#243

Post by kamaal »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #147
candiddevmike wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specification for most systems _is the code_. English cannot describe business rules as succinctly as code, and most business rules end up being implied from a spec rather than directly specified, at least in my experience. The thought of converting an app back into a spec document or list of feature requests seems crazy to me.

Why would it be? If you can describe an approximation of a system and regenerate it to be, let’s say, 98% accurate in 1% of the time that it would take to generate it by hand (and that’s being generous, it’s probably more like 0.1% in today’s day and age and that decimal is only moving left) aren’t there a giant set of use cases where the approximation of the system is totally fine? People will always bring up “but w…

You are just validating the point that code is spec.

For your proposed system to work one must have a deterministic way of sending said spec to a system(Compiler?) and getting the same output everytime.

Input/Output is just one thing, software does a lot of 'side effect' kind of work, and has security implications. You don't leave such things to luck. Things either work or don't.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#244

Post by jmspring »

dumbfounder wrote: post #65

The future is that people stop buying software and just build it themselves. The spam filter in thunderbird was broken for me, I built my own in hours and it works way better. Oh that CRM doesn’t have the features you want? Build one that does. It will become very easy to built and deploy solutions to many of your own bespoke problems.

This is honestly one of the more naive takes I've seen in awhile. People includes more than people that frequent HN. My wife and I are discussing I'd like to keep finance and related things in a password manager. She is in the social sciences (has a couple of degrees) and isn't a fan.

The majority of computer users are not on HN.

You profile says "Trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. DM me if you have ideas." - I would recommend exploring connections and opinions outside tech.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#246

Post by Barbing »

josephg wrote: post #234
diath wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary reason why it worked is because Claude could rip off the Linux driver. Without any prior work to rely on, how will the AI figure out proprietary hardware?

The Linux driver in this case is ISC licensed. There’s no legal or ethical problem in porting it. This is open source working as intended. I feel like the jury is still out on whether this is acceptable for GPL code. Suppose you get agent 1 to make a clear and detailed specification from reading copyrighted code (or from reverse engineering). Then get agent 2 to implement a new driver using the specification. Is ther…

>anything wrong with that?

Wonder if the courts will move fast enough to generally matter.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#247

Post by bmurphy1976 »

mixdup wrote: post #69
dumbfounder wrote: post #65

The future is that people stop buying software and just build it themselves. The spam filter in thunderbird was broken for me, I built my own in hours and it works way better. Oh that CRM doesn’t have the features you want? Build one that does. It will become very easy to built and deploy solutions to many of your own bespoke problems.

Unlikely. The future will be some people will do this, but honestly I think it will largely be people who were already tinkering with building things, whether full on software development or not My mom and dad, my brother who drives a dump truck in a limestone quarry, my sister-in-law, none of them work in tech or consider themselves technical in any way. They are never, ever going to write their own software and wil…

Some of us will do this, and it will be great for us for a period of time. That is, until others build another giant ball of shit 10,000x bigger than the npm/nodejs/javascript/java/cobol/c++/whatever else garbage pile we have today.

We'll be right back here in no-time.

Re: FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook, so AI built one for me

#250

Post by shermantanktop »

delfinom wrote: post #212
mixdup wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely. The future will be some people will do this, but honestly I think it will largely be people who were already tinkering with building things, whether full on software development or not My mom and dad, my brother who drives a dump truck in a limestone quarry, my sister-in-law, none of them work in tech or consider themselves technical in any way. They are never, ever going to write their own software and wil…

The future is either a regression of society from the resulting riots and massacres when 3/4 of the population is unemployed. Or perpetual work camps for the masses.

Can you name me another time when humanity has run out of useful work to do?

Was it when we tamed fire, invented the wheel, writing, or double entry bookkeeping? All of which appear more consequential than current AI.

We’ll always have something to do. And humans like doing things.

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