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Breaking the spell of vibe coding

fast.ai

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Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#281

Post by ben_w »

ryan_n wrote: post #244
rafaelmn wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vibe coding would be catastrophic here. Not because the AI can't write the code - it usually can - but because the failure mode is invisible. A hallucinated edge case in a tax calculation doesn't throw an error. It just produces a slightly wrong number that gets posted to a real accounting platform and nobody notices until the accountant does their review. How is that different from handwritten code ? Sounds like s…

It’s shocking to me that people even ask this type of question. How do you not see the difference between a machine that will hallucinate something random if it doesn’t know the answer vs a human that will logic through things and find the correct answer.

> It’s shocking to me that people even ask this type of question. How do you not see the difference between a machine that will hallucinate something random if it doesn’t know the answer vs a human that will logic through things and find the correct answer.

I would like to work with the humans you describe who, implicitly from your description, don't hallucinate something random when they don't know the answer.

I mean, I only recently finished dealing with around 18 months of an entire customer service department full of people who couldn't comprehend that they'd put a non-existent postal address and the wrong person on the bills they were sending, and this was therefore their own fault the bills weren't getting paid, and that other people in their own team had already admitted this, apologised to me, promised they'd fixed it, while actually still continuing to send letters to the same non-existent address.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying AI is magic (at best it's just one more pair of eyes no matter how many models you use), but humans are also not magic.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#282

Post by blibble »

aspenmartin wrote: post #269
ryan_n wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s shocking to me that people even ask this type of question. How do you not see the difference between a machine that will hallucinate something random if it doesn’t know the answer vs a human that will logic through things and find the correct answer.

It's shocking to me that people make this claim as if humans, especially in some legacy accounting system, would somehow be much better at (1) recognizing their mistakes, and (2) even when they don't, not fudge-fingering their implementation. Like the criticisms of agents are valid, but the incredulity that they will ever be used in production or high risk systems to me is just as incredible. Of course they will -- w…

bored at the weekend, are you sama?

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#284

Post by manishsharan »

ben_w wrote: post #281
ryan_n wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s shocking to me that people even ask this type of question. How do you not see the difference between a machine that will hallucinate something random if it doesn’t know the answer vs a human that will logic through things and find the correct answer.

> It’s shocking to me that people even ask this type of question. How do you not see the difference between a machine that will hallucinate something random if it doesn’t know the answer vs a human that will logic through things and find the correct answer. I would like to work with the humans you describe who, implicitly from your description, don't hallucinate something random when they don't know the answer. I mea…

Humans are accountable to each other. Humans can be shamed in a code review and reprimanded and threatened with consequences for sloppy work. Most, humans once reprimanded , will not make the same kind of mistake twice.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#285

Post by reppap »

gbnwl wrote: post #245
reppap wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I like to think about is: If these models were so powerful why would they ever sell access? They could just build endless products to sell, likely outcompeting anyone else who needs to employ humans. And if not building their own products they could be the highest value contractor ever. If you had midas touch would you rent it out?

They need to generate revenue to continue to raise money to continue to invest in compute. Even if they have the Midas Touch it needs to be continously improved because there are three other competing Midas Touch companies working on new and improved Midas Touch's that will make their's obsolete and worthless if they stay still even for a second.

But most of their funding comes from speculative investment, not selling their services. Also, wouldn't selling their own products/services generate revenue?

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#286

Post by aspenmartin »

blibble wrote: post #282
aspenmartin wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shocking to me that people make this claim as if humans, especially in some legacy accounting system, would somehow be much better at (1) recognizing their mistakes, and (2) even when they don't, not fudge-fingering their implementation. Like the criticisms of agents are valid, but the incredulity that they will ever be used in production or high risk systems to me is just as incredible. Of course they will -- w…

bored at the weekend, are you sama?

I unfortunately am not the droid you are looking for, I don't know a sama

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#287

Post by marcosdumay »

jazz9k wrote: post #253
koolba wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like they’re leasing away deeply discounted steam shovels at below market rates and somehow expecting to turn a profit doing so. The real profits are the companies selling them chips, fiber, and power.

If it's below market rates, the people using the shovels are the ones making a profit.

Shovels still have a defined cost, even if there's absolutely no gold there for one to find.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#288

Post by rafaelmn »

ryan_n wrote: post #244
rafaelmn wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vibe coding would be catastrophic here. Not because the AI can't write the code - it usually can - but because the failure mode is invisible. A hallucinated edge case in a tax calculation doesn't throw an error. It just produces a slightly wrong number that gets posted to a real accounting platform and nobody notices until the accountant does their review. How is that different from handwritten code ? Sounds like s…

It’s shocking to me that people even ask this type of question. How do you not see the difference between a machine that will hallucinate something random if it doesn’t know the answer vs a human that will logic through things and find the correct answer.

Because I've seen the results ? Failure mode of LLMs are unintuitive, and the ability to grasp the big picture is limited (by context mostly I'd say), but I find CC to follow instructions better than 80% of people I've worked with. And the amount of mental stamina it would take to grok that much context even when you know the system vs. what these systems can do in minutes.

As for the hallucinations - you're there to keep the system grounded. Well the compiler is, then tests, then you. It works surprisingly well if you monitor the process and don't let LLM wander off when it gets confused.

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#289

Post by logicprog »

kalaksi wrote: post #276
matwood wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of, but the speed at which I can see results and the ability to quickly get unstuck does pull me in more than just coding. While I find both enjoyable, I'm more of a 'end result' person than a 'likes to the type in the code' person. There was a conversation about this a month or so ago referencing what types of people like LLMs and which do not.

I saw a conversation like that but, like here, I didn't always understand what they meant with "end result". Was it only the app GUI and they don't care about the code at all, or do they still care about the code quality, the architecture and planning.

Personally, for me, the "end result" embraces the architecture, planning, algorithms, domain model, code quality, and documentation etc, as well as what the app does in the end. I care a lot about making well architected, reliable stuff

Re: Breaking the spell of vibe coding

#290

Post by jt2190 »

ryan_n wrote: post #244
rafaelmn wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vibe coding would be catastrophic here. Not because the AI can't write the code - it usually can - but because the failure mode is invisible. A hallucinated edge case in a tax calculation doesn't throw an error. It just produces a slightly wrong number that gets posted to a real accounting platform and nobody notices until the accountant does their review. How is that different from handwritten code ? Sounds like s…

It’s shocking to me that people even ask this type of question. How do you not see the difference between a machine that will hallucinate something random if it doesn’t know the answer vs a human that will logic through things and find the correct answer.

> How do you not see the difference between a machine that will hallucinate something random if it doesn’t know the answer vs a human...

Your claim here is that humans can't hallucinate something random. Clearly they can and do.

> ... that will logic through things and find the correct answer.

But humans do not find the correct answer 100% of the time.

The way that we address human fallibility is to create a system that does not accept the input of a single human as "truth". Even these systems only achieve "very high probability" but not 100% correctness. We can employ these same systems with AI.

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