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We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

anthropic.com

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Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#311

Post by ajross »

lubujackson wrote: post #265

This is very much a "vibe coding can build you the Great Pyramids but it can't build a cathedral" situation, as described earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46898223 I know this is an impressive accomplishment and is meant to show us the future potential, but it achieves big results by throwing an insane amount of compute at the problem, brute forcing its way to functionality. $20,000 set on fire, at…

> $20,000 set on fire

To be fair, that's two weeks of the employer cost of a FAANG engineer's labor. And no human hacks a working compiler in two weeks.

It's a lot of AI compute for a demo, sure. But $20k stunts are hardly unique. Clearly there's value being demonstrated here.

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#312

Post by madmax911 »

luke5441 wrote: post #294
jbjbjbjb wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s cool but there’s a good chance it’s just copying someone else’s homework albeit in an elaborate round about way.

It looks like a much more progressed/complete version of https://github.com/kidoz/smdc-toolchain/tree/master/crates/s... . But that one is only a month old. So a bit confused there. Maybe that was also created via LLM?

[dead]

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#313

Post by luke5441 »

rubymamis wrote: post #95
Philpax wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Rust-based compiler is it plagiarising from?

There are many, here's a simple Google search: https://github.com/jyn514/saltwater https://github.com/ClementTsang/rustcc https://github.com/maekawatoshiki/rucc

Another one:

https://github.com/rustcoreutils/posixutils-rs/tree/main/cc

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#314

Post by Philpax »

luke5441 wrote: post #313
rubymamis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many, here's a simple Google search: https://github.com/jyn514/saltwater https://github.com/ClementTsang/rustcc https://github.com/maekawatoshiki/rucc

Another one: https://github.com/rustcoreutils/posixutils-rs/tree/main/cc

Can't compile the Linux kernel, and ironically, also partly written by Claude.

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#315

Post by [deleted] »

fragmede wrote: post #273
bopbopbop7 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people care more about compiler speed than the correctness? I would love to meet these imaginary people that are fine with a compiler that is straight up broken. Emitting working code is the baseline, not some preference slider.

Let's pretend, for just a second, that the people who do, having been able to learn how to program, are not absolute fucking morons. Straight up broken is obviously not useful, so maybe the conclusions you've jumped to could use some reexamination.

[deleted]

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#316

Post by willsmith72 »

eek2121 wrote: post #307
ndesaulniers wrote: post #165

I spent a good part of my career (nearly a decade) at Google working on getting Clang to build the linux kernel. https://clangbuiltlinux.github.io/ This LLM did it in (checks notes): > Over nearly 2,000 Claude Code sessions and $20,000 in API costs It may build, but does it boot (was also a significant and distinct next milestone)? (Also, will it blend?). Looks like yes! > The 100,000-line compiler can build a bootab…

Also: a large amount of folks seem to think Claude code is losing a ton of money. I have no idea where the final numbers land, however, if the $20,000 figure is accurate and based on some of the estimates I've seen, they could've hired 8 senior level developers at a quarter million a year for the same amount of money spent internally. Granted, marketing sucks up far too much money for any startup, and again, we don't…

this doesn't add up. the 20k is in API costs. people talk about CC losing money because it's way more efficient than the API. I.e. the same work with efficient use of CC might have cost ~$5k.

but regardless, hiring is difficult and high-end talent is limited. If the costs were anywhere close to equivalent, the agents are a no-brainer

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#317

Post by bhadass »

nomel wrote: post #298
jbjbjbjb wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s cool but there’s a good chance it’s just copying someone else’s homework albeit in an elaborate round about way.

I would claim that LLMs desperately need proprietary code in their training, before we see any big gains in quality. There's some incredible source available code out there. Statistically, I think there's a LOT more not so great source available code out there, because the majority of output of seasoned/high skill developers is proprietary. To me, a surprising portion of Claude 4.5 output definitely looks like studen…

yeah, but isn't the whole point of claude code to get people to provide preference data/telemetry data to anthropic (unless you opt out?). same w/ other providers.

i'm guessing most of the gains we've seen recently are post training rather than pretraining.

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#319

Post by gmueckl »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #123
gmueckl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result is hardly a clean room implementation. It was rather a brute force attempt to decompress fuzzily stored knowledge contained within the network and it required close steering (using a big suite of tests) to get a reasonable approximation to the desired output. The compression and storage happened during the LLM training. Prove this statement wrong.

Nobody disputes that the LLM was drawing on knowledge in its training data. Obviously it was! But you'll need to be a bit more specific with your critique, because there is a whole spectrum of interpretations, from "it just decompressed fuzzily-stored code verbatim from the internet" (obviously wrong, since the Rust-based C compiler it wrote doesn't exist on the internet) all the way to "it used general knowledge fro…

The result is a fuzzy reproduction of the training input, specifically of the compilers contained within. The reproduction in a different, yet still similar enough programming language does not refute that. The implementation was strongly guided by a compiler and a suite of tests as an explicit filter on those outputs and limiting the acceptable solution space, which excluded unwanted interpolations of the training set that also result from the lossy input compression.

The fact that the implementation language for the compiler is rust doesn't factor into this. ML based natural language translation has proven that model training produces an abstract space of concepts internally that maps from and to different languages on the input and output side. All this points to is that there are different implicitly formed decoders for the same compressed data embedded in the LLM and the keyword rust in the input activates one specific to that programming language.

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#320

Post by notnullorvoid »

ben_w wrote: post #179
lossolo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're very good at reiterating, that's true. The issue is that without the people outside of "most humans" there would be no code and no civilization. We'd still be sitting in trees. That is real intelligence.

Why's that the issue? "This AI can do 99.99%* of all human endeavours, but without that last 0.01% we'd still be in the trees", doesn't stop that 99.99% getting made redundant by the AI. * vary as desired for your preference of argument, regarding how competent the AI actually is vs. how few people really show "true intelligence". Personally I think there's a big gap between them: paradigm-shifting inventiveness is n…

Here's a potentially more uncomfortable thought, if all people through history with potential for "true intelligence" had a tool that did 99% of everything do you think they would've had motivation to learn enough of that 99% to give insight into the yet discovered.
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