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The Eternal Sloptember

geohot.github.io

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Re: The Eternal Sloptember

#31

Post by andrewflnr »

fontain wrote: post #6

We all remember cryptocurrency. Everyone in tech proclaimed fiat was dead, every office buzzed with talk of every possible way that cryptocurrency could be used, billions of dollars flooded in to projects losing money hand over fist. The cynics reacted to the froth with outright rejection of the idea. And today… cryptocurrency exists, it has some use, but it didn’t take over the world, it didn’t kill fiat, it was use…

I wish people would stop comparing AI with cryptocurrency. The hype/perception was the only thing that was similar between them. The fundamental usefulness of the respective technologies are not comparable.

Re: The Eternal Sloptember

#32

Post by simianwords »

People misunderstand how AI is used in coding in normal work environments. New feature requirement comes - maybe you need a new service or some new classes. You need to do some research first.

You guide the AI with some prompts and give it some guidance on how to scenario-test it. It makes some classes, test methods. Maybe ~2000 lines and you do a quick verification, check if the overall idea looks okay. Ask it to fix a few design things and then merge it.

Its much easier than doing it yourself with all the boilerplate and understanding each esoteric language specific thing. Which library do I use for UDP communication in golang? The agent might have made a good assumption. These kind of things is where it speeds it up.

Re: The Eternal Sloptember

#33

Post by aeve890 »

mountainriver wrote: post #4

My guess is the models just continue to get better and better When I got into agentic coding a year or two ago I was sure it was only good at autocomplete. Something happened earlier this year where the models hit a new level of capability. Everyone I know now just does agentic coding, and it’s really amazing. I think we should just try pushing this as far as we can possibly go, it really feels like the acceleration…

>... I was sure it was only good at autocomplete. Something happened earlier this year where the models hit a new level of capability.

Yes, something happened, it got better at autocomplete. What else could be? The underlying model hasn't changed.

>acceleration of the human race

Please just stop with this bullshit. Nobody's curing cancer, climate change, inequality or whatever important real problem there is with LLMs. Nobody.

If this tech is good enough to make you more productive is just because you're not working in anything new or cutting edge or innovative. The only reason a LLM knows how to do your job is because that code has been literally written before enough times to appear in the training data. Try to use llms to write C++26, some HDL or in any niche stack and you'll get a nice reality check about LLMs.

Re: The Eternal Sloptember

#34

Post by bluegatty »

fontain wrote: post #6

We all remember cryptocurrency. Everyone in tech proclaimed fiat was dead, every office buzzed with talk of every possible way that cryptocurrency could be used, billions of dollars flooded in to projects losing money hand over fist. The cynics reacted to the froth with outright rejection of the idea. And today… cryptocurrency exists, it has some use, but it didn’t take over the world, it didn’t kill fiat, it was use…

Almost nobody used crypto, everyone is using AI, every day for doing productive work and almost nobody would give it up.

I don't understand how it's remotely reasonable to try to make the comparison.

Re: The Eternal Sloptember

#35

Post by HerbManic »

zarzavat wrote: post #26

It really feels like a mass psychosis. I'm not an AI sceptic insofar as I fully expect to get replaced by some future AI system. But what we have now isn't it. To use a Geohot-inspired analogy, what we have now is like the Google self-driving car of 2010. It works most of the time, yet sometimes fails in unpredictable ways. So you need a safety driver behind the wheel to constantly watch what it's doing (the code rev…

That is a fair analogy.

There is some very cool tech it just needs continued refinement, there is a path forwards even if it isn't always the clearest. This is happening but it is taking years and a lot of work to get done.

Re: The Eternal Sloptember

#36

Post by simianwords »

Alex_L_Wood wrote: post #9
wyager wrote: post #5

> They are a highly sophisticated statistical model designed to mimic the distribution of programming Are we really still doing this?

Well, since the fundamental underlying structure is still the same, yes.

But its not useful because even humans are like that - a bunch of neurons slapped together. Overall a tired analogy that is more suited to stay in 2024 where it belongs. Right now it is clear that it is _much_ more than a statistical model semantically. It is misleading to claim it is _just_ that just like a human is _just_ a statistical model.

Re: The Eternal Sloptember

#38

Post by nilirl »

I agree that I can write better code than an agent.

But it can write working code much faster than I can.

And in a lot of cases, unfortunately, faster beats better.

Re: The Eternal Sloptember

#39

Post by danielmarkbruce »

wyager wrote: post #5

> They are a highly sophisticated statistical model designed to mimic the distribution of programming Are we really still doing this?

It's the mantra of the AI skeptics. Sounds so clever because it's technically true. Just like humans are just piles of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon atoms, along with maybe a dozen or so other trace elements, none of which have any intelligence or will or desire to do anything - hence humans cannot possibly be intelligent or have any free will.

Re: The Eternal Sloptember

#40

Post by danielmarkbruce »

simianwords wrote: post #36
Alex_L_Wood wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, since the fundamental underlying structure is still the same, yes.

But its not useful because even humans are like that - a bunch of neurons slapped together. Overall a tired analogy that is more suited to stay in 2024 where it belongs. Right now it is clear that it is _much_ more than a statistical model semantically. It is misleading to claim it is _just_ that just like a human is _just_ a statistical model.

Neurons? Go lower. Just atoms. Dumb, senseless atoms.
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