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The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

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Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#351

Post by nsvd2 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #332
xandrius wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you're using it more towards vibe coding than AI-assisted coding: I use AI to write the stuff the way I want it to be written. I give it information about how to structure files, coding style and the logic flow. Then I spend time to read each file change and give feedback on things I'd do differently. Vastly saves me time and it's very close or even better than what I would have written. If the result is somethi…

It's a spectrum and we don't have clear notches on the ruler letting us know when we're confidently steering the model and when we've wandered into vibe coding. For me, this position is easy to take when I am feeling well and am not feeling pressured to produce in a fixed (and likely short) time frame. It also doesn't help that Claude ends every recommendation with "Would you like me to go ahead and do that for you?"…

That is indeed a very annoying part of many AI models. I wish I could turn it off.

Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#352

Post by AstroBen »

zozbot234 wrote: post #207
DavidPiper wrote: post #89

I've just started a new role as a senior SWE after 5 months off. I've been using Claude a bit in my time off; it works really well. But now that I've started using it professionally, I keep running into a specific problem: I have nothing to hold onto in my own mind. How this plays out: I use Claude to write some moderately complex code and raise a PR. Someone asks me to change something. I look at the review and thin…

Ask Claude to explain the code in depth for you. It's a language model, it's great at taking in obscure code and writing up explanations of how it works in plain English. You can do this during the previous change phase of course. Just ask "How would one plan this change to the codebase? Could you explain in depth why?" If you're expected to be thoroughly familiar with that code, it makes no sense to skip that step.

By working in this way you're proactively de-skilling yourself. Do it long enough and you're now replaceable by anyone that can type a prompt.

Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#353

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

jnovek wrote: post #238
djaro wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if Bob can do things with agents, he can do things. The problem arrises when Bob encounters a problem too complex or unique for agents to solve. To me, it seems a bit like the difference between learning how to cook versus buying microwave dinners. Sure, a good microwave dinner can taste really good, and it will be a lot better than what a beginning cook will make. But imagine aspiring cooks just buying premade…

How many people who cook professionally are gourmet chefs? I think it ends up that gourmet cooking is so infrequently needed that we don’t require everyone who makes food to do it, just a small group of professionally trained people. Most people who make food for a living work somewhere like McDonald’s and Applebee’s where a high level of skill is not required. There will still be programming specialists in the futur…

That's the problem though: programmers who become the equivalent of McDonald's workers will be paid poorly like McDonald's workers and be treated as disposable like McDonald's workers.

Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#354

Post by dragontamer »

conception wrote: post #350
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the social paradigm needs to change. Is everyone just going to roll over and die while AI destroys academia (and possibly a lot more)? Last September, Tyler Austin Harper published a piece for The Atlantic on how he thinks colleges should respond to AI. What he proposes is radical —but, if you've concluded that AI really is going to destroy everything these institutions stand for, I think you have to at least co…

Well, we are already rolling over and dying (literally) on everything from vaccine denial to climate change. So, yes, we are. Obviously yes.

In the US it is dying off.

Not so in plenty of other countries. Hopefully US reverses the anti-science trend before it's too late

Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#355

Post by einszwei »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #227

> Schwartz's experiment is the most revealing, and not for the reason he thinks. What he demonstrated is that Claude can, with detailed supervision, produce a technically rigorous physics paper. What he actually demonstrated, if you read carefully, is that the supervision is the physics. Claude produced a complete first draft in three days. It looked professional. The equations seemed right. The plots matched expecta…

> And so the paradox is, the LLMs are only useful† if you're Schwartz, and you can't become Schwartz by using LLMs.

I have gained a lot of benefit using LLMs in conjunction with textbooks for studying. So, I think LLMs could help you become Schwartz.

Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#356

Post by Ifkaluva »

wongarsu wrote: post #268
II2II wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calculators are deterministically correct Calculators are deterministic, but they are not necessarily correct. Consider 32-bit integer arithmetic: 30000000 * 1000 / 1000 30000000 / 1000 * 1000 Mathematically, they are identical. Computationally, the results are deterministic. On the other hand, the computer will produce different results. There are many other cases where the expected result is different from what a…

A good calculator will however do this correctly (as in: the way anyone would expect). Small cheap calculators revert to confusing syntax, but if you pay $30 for a decent handheld calculator or use something decent like wolframalpha on your phone/laptop/desktop you won't run into precision issues for reasonable numbers.

He’s not talking about order of operations, he’s talking about floating point error, which will accumulate in different ways in each case, because floating point is an imperfect representation of real numbers

Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#357

Post by zozbot234 »

saulpw wrote: post #348
zozbot234 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask Claude to explain the code in depth for you. It's a language model, it's great at taking in obscure code and writing up explanations of how it works in plain English. You can do this during the previous change phase of course. Just ask "How would one plan this change to the codebase? Could you explain in depth why?" If you're expected to be thoroughly familiar with that code, it makes no sense to skip that step.

This is like asking Claude to explain some aspect of physics to you. It'll 'feel' like you understand, but in order to really understand you have to work those annoying problems. Same with anything. You can read about how to meditate, cook, sew, whatever. But if you only read about something, your mental model is hollow and purely conceptual, having never had to interact with actual reality. Your brain has to work th…

> ...in order to really understand you have to work those annoying problems.

GP says that they have to come back tomorrow and edit the code to fix something. That's a verification step: if you can do that (even with some effort) you understand why the AI did what it did. This is not some completely new domain where what you wrote would apply very clearly, it's just a codebase that GP is supposed to be familiar with already!

Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#358

Post by zozbot234 »

DavidPiper wrote: post #155
xandrius wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you're using it more towards vibe coding than AI-assisted coding: I use AI to write the stuff the way I want it to be written. I give it information about how to structure files, coding style and the logic flow. Then I spend time to read each file change and give feedback on things I'd do differently. Vastly saves me time and it's very close or even better than what I would have written. If the result is somethi…

I agree that being further along the Vibe end of the spectrum is the issue. Some of the other ways I use Claude don't have the same problems. > If the result is something you can't explain than slow down and follow the steps it takes as they are taken. The problem is I can explain it. But it's rote and not malleable. I didn't do the work to prove it to myself. Its primary form is on the page, not in my head, as it we…

> I can explain it. But it's rote and not malleable.

The AI can help with that too. Ask it "How would one think about this issue, to prove that what was done here is correct?" and it will come up with somethimg to help you ground that understanding intuitively.

Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#359

Post by iterateoften »

wongarsu wrote: post #234
iterateoften wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can’t write maintainable code because they don’t have real world experience of getting your hands dirty in a company. The only way to get startup experience is to build a startup or work for one

Duh, the only way to get startup experience is indeed to get startup experience. My point is that getting into the weeds of writing CRUD software is not the only way to gain the ability to write complex algorithms, or to debug complex issues, or do performance optimization. It's only common because the stuff you make on the journey used to be economically valuable

> write complex algorithms, or to debug complex issues, or do performance optimization

That’s the stuff that ai is eating. The stuff I’m talking about (scaling orgs, maintaining a project long term, deciding what features to build or not build etc) is stuff very hard for ai

Re: The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing

#360

Post by whateveracct »

roenxi wrote: post #40
djaro wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if Bob can do things with agents, he can do things. The problem arrises when Bob encounters a problem too complex or unique for agents to solve. To me, it seems a bit like the difference between learning how to cook versus buying microwave dinners. Sure, a good microwave dinner can taste really good, and it will be a lot better than what a beginning cook will make. But imagine aspiring cooks just buying premade…

That doesn't sound like much of an issue. Bob was already going to encounter problems that are too large and complex for him to solve, agents or otherwise. Life throws us hard problems. I don't recall if we even assumed Bob was unusually capable, he might be one of life's flounderers. I'd give good odds that if he got through a program with the help of agents he'll get through life achieving at least a normal level o…

> That doesn't sound like much of an issue. Bob was already going to encounter problems that are too large and complex for him to solve, agents or otherwise.

I have literally never run into this in my career..challenges have always been something to help me grow.

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