Some thoughts on LLMs and software development • Hacker News Board

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#271

Post by utyop22 » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:39 AM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #239

utyop22 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but quality is definitely taking a hit now that no-one is able to keep up." And its going to get worse! So please explain to me how in the net, you are going to be better off? You're not. I think most people haven't taken a decent economics class and don't deeply understand the notion of trade offs and the fact there is no free lunch.

Yep, my strong feeling is that the net benefit of all of this will be zero. The time you have to spend holding the LLM hand is almost equal to how much time you would have spent writing it yourself. But then you've got yourself a codebase that you didn't write yourself, and we all know hunting bugs in someone else's code is way harder than code you had a part in designing/writing. People are honestly just drunk on th…

My way of looking at this is simple.

What are people doing this quote on quote, time that they have gained back? Working on new projects? Ok can you show me the impact on the financials (show me the money)? And then I usually get dead silence. And before someone mentions the layoffs - lmao get real. Its offshoring 2.0 so that the large firms can increase their internal equity to keep funding this effort.

Most people are terrible at giving true informed opinions - they never dig deep enough to determine if what they are saying is proper.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#272

Post by jama211 » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:39 AM UTC

johnnienaked wrote: post #222

FromTheFirstIn wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny how nothing seems to be AI’s fault.

No one seems to be able to grasp the possibility that AI is a failure

“There’s no use for this thing!” - said the farmer about the computer

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#273

Post by discreteevent » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:40 AM UTC

Difwif wrote: post #230

johnnienaked wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology does not always help people, in fact often it creates new problems that didn't exist before. Also telling someone to "adapt to the times" is a bit silly. If it helped as much as its claimed, there wouldn't be any need to try and convince people they should be using it. A LOT of parallels with crypto, which is still trying to find its killer app 16 years later.

My parents could have said your first paragraph when I tried to teach them they could Google their questions and find answers. Technology moves forward and productivity improves for those that move with it.

A few examples of technology that moved 'forward' but decreased productivity for those who moved with it from my 'lived' experience:

1) CASE tools (and UML driven development)

2) Wizard driven code.

3) Distributed objects

4) Microservices

These all really were the hot thing with massive pressure to adopt them just like now. The Microsoft demos of Access wizards generating a complete solution for your business had that same wow feeling as LLM code. That's not to say that LLM code won't succeed but it is to say that this statement is definitely false:

> Technology moves forward and productivity improves for those that move with it.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#274

Post by jama211 » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:41 AM UTC

bko wrote: post #16

> Certainly if we ever ask a hallucination engine for a numeric answer, we should ask it at least three times, so we get some sense of the variation. This works on people as well! Cops do this when interrogating. You tell the same story three times, sometimes backwards. It's hard to keep track of everything if you're lying or you don't recall clearly so you can get a sense of confidence. Also works on interviews, ask…

It works to confuse people and make them sound like they’re lying when they’re not, too. Gotta be careful with this.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#275

Post by jama211 » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:41 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #158

For a hot second I thought LLMs were coming for our jobs. Then I realized they were just as likely to end up creating mountains of things for us to fix later. And as things settle down, I find good use cases for Claude Code that augment me but are in no danger of replacing me. It certainly has its moments.

Finally, an opinion on here that’s reasonable and isn’t “AI is perfect” or “AI is useless”.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#276

Post by jama211 » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:42 AM UTC

sebnukem2 wrote: post #6

> hallucinations aren’t a bug of LLMs, they are a feature. Indeed they are the feature. All an LLM does is produce hallucinations, it’s just that we find some of them useful. Nice.

I find it a bit of a reductive way of looking at it personally

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#277

Post by utyop22 » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:43 AM UTC

johnnienaked wrote: post #237

brabel wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone needs to be convinced at this point. Every developer is using LLM and I really can’t believe someone who has made a career out of automating things wouldn’t be immediately drawn to trying them at least. Every single company seems convinced and using it too. The comparison to crypto makes no sense.

I need to be convinced. Go ahead, convince me. Please describe clearly and concisely in one or two sentences the clear economic value/advantage of LLMs.

Careful now, you will scare them away!!!!!

People love stuff that makes them feel like they are doing less work. Cognitive biases distort reality and rational thinking, we know this already through behavioural economics.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#278

Post by bartread » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:45 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #265

> My former colleague Rebecca Parsons, has been saying for a long time that hallucinations aren’t a bug of LLMs, they are a feature. Indeed they are the feature. All an LLM does is produce hallucinations, it’s just that we find some of them useful. This is an example of my least favorite style of feigned insight: redefining a term into meaninglessness just so you can say something that sounds different while not actu…

I’ve never liked that this behaviour is described using the term “hallucination”.

If a human being talked confidently about something that they were just making up out of thin air by synthesizing based (consciously or unconsciously) on other information they know you wouldn’t call it “hallucination”: you’d call it “bullshit”.

And, honestly, “bullshit” is a much more helpful way of thinking about this behaviour because it somewhat nullifies the arguments people make against the use of LLMs due to this behaviour. Fundamentally, if you don’t want to work with LLMs because they sometimes “bullshit”, are you planning on no longer working with human beings as well?

It doesn’t hold up.

But, more than that, going back to your point: it’s much harder to redefine the term “bullshit” to mean something different to the common understanding.

All of that said, I don’t mind the piece and, honestly, the “I haven’t the foggiest” comment about the future of software development as a career is well made. I guess it’s just a somewhat useful collection of scattered thoughts on LLMs and, as such, an example of a piece where the “thoughts on” title fits well. I don’t think the author is trying to be particularly authoritative.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#279

Post by dapperdrake » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:45 AM UTC

xyzzy123 wrote: post #270

scott_w wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fowler is not really redefining "hallucination." He's using a form of irony that emphasises how fundamental "hallucinations" are to the operation of the system. One might also say "you can't get rid of collateral damage from bombs. Indeed, collateral damage is the feature, it's just some of that is what we want to blow up." You're not meant to take it literally.

You might as well say it's interpolating or extrapolating. That's what people are usually doing too, even when recalling situations that they were personally involved in. I think we call it "hallucinating" when the machine does this in an un-human-like way.

The longer term for this is "stochastic parrot". See another HN comment here comparing LLMs to theater actors or movie actors.

LLMs just spew words. It just so happens that human beings can decode them into something related, useful, and meaningful surprisingly often.

Might even be a useful case of pareidolia (a term I dislike, because a world without any pattern matching whatsoever would not necessarily be "better").

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#280

Post by discreteevent » Fri, Aug 29, 2025, 8:46 AM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #225

FromTheFirstIn wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny how nothing seems to be AI’s fault.

If poor work gets merged, the responsibility lies in who wrote it, who merged it, and who allows such a culture. The tools used do not hold responsibilities, they are tools.

"I got rid of that machine saw. Every so often it made a cut that was slightly off line but it was hard to see. I might not find out until much later and then have to redo everything."