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Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

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Re: Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

#31

Post by sgt101 »

nikincn wrote: post #13

Faking in demo video is now an essential evil to get virality . Because social media is about virality . All commenting on the video and this thread are now curious to try Devin, to prove it works or to prove it doesnt . So now if it works faking helped it get virality , more users , more demand for product . If it doesnt work good enough still it will be good enough for some of the users who discovered it because of…

No one should do business, or collaborate academically, with anyone associated with the video or company again. To co-author with anyone involved with this is misconduct, and every University should be aware of that - they are liars, they cannot be trusted to do research. The VC's should retrieve all unspent cash and sue the founders.

They can reflect on what they did looking at the canvas of the inside of their tents in a homeless camp.

Re: Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

#32

Post by jstummbillig »

thearnabsarkar wrote: post #28
maziyar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words they managed to fake it until they make! Like most visionaries in silicon valley, lie now, tweet about it, prompt it through fake influencers with their mouth open on YouTube, get that VC money without any due diligence, hire smart people and force them to do it!

You are supposed to make it before you get caught faking it.

a) Taking notes

b) On the topic of notes: What are the odds of this being your first comment, on a 2 yo account and me taking note. A little sus.

Re: Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

#33

Post by spxneo »

spacechild1 wrote: post #3

From the youtube comment section: > I really hate how normalized faking it in demos has become I fully agree!

but that is the difference between raising millions or not

of course founders are going to lie and make up faked tech demos

feels like we are close to a Minsky Moment for AI bubble

Re: Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

#34

Post by magospietato »

If you've ever attempted to extract a meaningful few-shot response to a non-trivial coding question from an LLM, this shouldn't be a surprise.

That said, I have worked with actual humans in the industry who perform this badly, and that is still a significant achievement for a software program.

Re: Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

#36

Post by spxneo »

nikincn wrote: post #13

Faking in demo video is now an essential evil to get virality . Because social media is about virality . All commenting on the video and this thread are now curious to try Devin, to prove it works or to prove it doesnt . So now if it works faking helped it get virality , more users , more demand for product . If it doesnt work good enough still it will be good enough for some of the users who discovered it because of…

You are mistaken. Lying about a products capabilities, trying to pass off something that isn't might work for a while but eventually people find out (evem with heavy marketing) and word gets around.

When you are selling something, you must be absolutely honest with what you are delivering. If you can't do it don't put it on! Not delivering makes you lose trust.

Scott Wu's option is here is to keep the lie going or just throw in the towel and say hey AI was a hype it's good at summarizing text and descent code assistant but its not going to replace human software engineers for a long time.

Which do you think he's going to take? Whichever is going to result in $$$.

Re: Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

#37

Post by HEGalloway »

I was quite skeptical of this. I've seen another company claiming to do the 3d generation do the same with their demos, they outsourced the "3d generation" part to low-wage workers in 3rd world countries and claimed the models to be generated by AI. I see this as a future trend to get investor money and do the rug pull.

Re: Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

#38

Post by carlbrown »

lordswork wrote: post #7

Great video. As a counterpoint to the video author's claims, it's worth pointing out that Devin doesn't have to be anywhere close to as fast as a human software engineer to be useful. Even if it turns an hour task to a day long task, it's still going to cost a fraction of what it would to pay the engineer, so that bar it must meet is quite low.

The video doesn't claim that Devin isn't useful. The video is about the claims Devin's company is making: 1) Lying outright about Devin completing and getting paid for Upwork jobs, and 2) Declaring that Devin is an "AI Software Engineer" is, at best, a huge exaggeration.

Re: Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

#39

Post by carlbrown »

heyitaki wrote: post #19

Picking apart Devin based solely on the demo video while ignoring all of the primary source testimonials on Twitter as to Devin's effectiveness seems somewhat intellectually dishonest... A demo video will of course cherrypick impressive-looking moments, even if they're not really.

The company said in the description of the demo video that Devin did something in the demo video that Devin clearly did not do in the demo video.

That's a lie, pure and simple, and no statements made elsewhere can make that lie any less a lie.

Re: Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork Lie Exposed [video]

#40

Post by carlbrown »

sgt101 wrote: post #31
nikincn wrote: post #13

Faking in demo video is now an essential evil to get virality . Because social media is about virality . All commenting on the video and this thread are now curious to try Devin, to prove it works or to prove it doesnt . So now if it works faking helped it get virality , more users , more demand for product . If it doesnt work good enough still it will be good enough for some of the users who discovered it because of…

No one should do business, or collaborate academically, with anyone associated with the video or company again. To co-author with anyone involved with this is misconduct, and every University should be aware of that - they are liars, they cannot be trusted to do research. The VC's should retrieve all unspent cash and sue the founders. They can reflect on what they did looking at the canvas of the inside of their tent…

I disagree. There are no actual lies in the video itself, and I don't think that, for example, the engineer who is narrating the video is responsible for writing the description of the video (which is where the actual lie was).

The person (probably in marketing) that made the false claim is at fault, and any manager involved who did not stop the lie is at fault.

The software developers who are working on Devin's code likely had no control of or idea about how the video was going to be marketed.

There have been many times that I've been part of a team that built a product we were proud of, and had some business or sales person at our company, over our objections, make claims about it to a customer (or potential customer) that the sales person had been told were not true.

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