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Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

stevekrouse.com

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Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#381

Post by pier25 »

smokedetector1 wrote: post #367

> unless you believe in magic, it's only a matter of time until we reach the point at which machine intelligence is indistinguishable from human intelligence I find this flippancy about the greatest mystery in the universe extremely arrogant and incurious and wish it wouldn't be so prevalent.

In theory a computer should be able to model any physical process so I do agree it's only a matter of time. That said I don't think I will be alive to see it honestly.

The current tech won't get us there just like the steam engine or the internal combustion engine didn't get us to the Moon. And getting to AGI is probably more like getting to Mars.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#383

Post by Noumenon72 »

slopinthebag wrote: post #94
lateforwork wrote: post #71

Chris Lattner, inventor of the Swift programming language recently took a look at a compiler entirely written by Claude AI. Lattner found nothing innovative in the code generated by AI [1]. And this is why humans will be needed to advance the state of the art. AI tends to accept conventional wisdom. Because of this, it struggles with genuine critical thinking and cannot independently advance the state of the art. AI…

Yeah I think he had a pretty sane take in that article: >CCC shows that AI systems can internalize the textbook knowledge of a field and apply it coherently at scale. AI can now reliably operate within established engineering practice. This is a genuine milestone that removes much of the drudgery of repetition and allows engineers to start closer to the state of the art. And also > The most effective engineers will n…

> allows engineers to start closer to the state of the art

This reminds me of the Slate Star Codex story "Ars Longa, Vita Brevis"[1], where it took almost an entire lifespan just to learn what the earlier alchemists had found, so only the last few hours of an alchemist's life were actually valuable. Now we can all skip ahead.

1. https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#384

Post by moconnor »

abcde666777 wrote: post #178

It seems to be inevitable that with any new technology we go through a phase of super duper excitement about the possibilities, where we try to use it to the extreme, and through that process start to absorb what it actually is and isn't capable of. The hype cycle's distasteful of course, but I've accepted that this is how humans figure out what things are. Like a child we have to abuse it before we learn how to prop…

I’ve been programming professionally for 25 years. Well, 24 really because in the whole last year I barely wrote a line myself but my output increased dramatically.

If you can’t see that it’s over, I’m not sure what to tell you. You will, in time.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#385

Post by koromak »

I desperately want this to be true, but at least in my sector, it isn't. You still need talented and knowledgable programmers, but they don't do very much programming. Its all code review, infrastructure, devops.

At least for a small business, users are catching on that they can build a dirty app that gets them what they specifically want, instead of relying on some paid software to give everyone a little bit of what they want. Partially this suggests I'm just in the wrong sector, but it is absolutely happening.

I dont' think this matters to Google or Amazon, they can't be replaced. But small businesses are a different story.

And the result of all this? We need to heavily rely on AI, so that we can outpace individual users in delivering what they want. I hate it, I didn't give the order, but I do see the writing on the wall. This workflow is miserable, it sucks the fun out of the job, but unfortunately it really is faster. And small businesses rely on the income coming in next year, not in 5 years.

As a side note, I also think users are becoming extremely used to having a chatbot do everything for them. Every site is going to have one, and apps that don't will fall behind.

I'd like to be on a different multiverse timeline honestly

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#386

Post by idopmstuff »

patrickmay wrote: post #229
idopmstuff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former PM, I will say that if you want to stop something from happening at your company, the best route is to come off very positive about it initially. This is critical because it gives you credibility. After my first few years of PMing, I developed a reflex that any time I heard a deeply stupid proposal, I would enthusiastically ask if I could take the lead on scoping it out. I would do the initial research/pl…

As a (sometime) TPM, you are the kind of PM I've been looking for.

Hah, thanks but unfortunately I quit and started a business a couple of years ago, in no small part because I didn't want to spend my time maneuvering to kill stupid ideas.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#387

Post by [deleted] »

pier25 wrote: post #381
smokedetector1 wrote: post #367

> unless you believe in magic, it's only a matter of time until we reach the point at which machine intelligence is indistinguishable from human intelligence I find this flippancy about the greatest mystery in the universe extremely arrogant and incurious and wish it wouldn't be so prevalent.

In theory a computer should be able to model any physical process so I do agree it's only a matter of time. That said I don't think I will be alive to see it honestly. The current tech won't get us there just like the steam engine or the internal combustion engine didn't get us to the Moon. And getting to AGI is probably more like getting to Mars.

[deleted]

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#388

Post by driftnode »

jofzar wrote: post #290
elgertam wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know where LLMs boost me the most? When I need to integrate a bunch of systems together, each with their own sets of documentation. Instead of spending hours getting two or three systems to integrate with mine with the proper OAuth scopes or SAML and so on, an LLM can get me working integrations in a short time. None of that is ever going to be innovative; it's purely an exercise in perseverance as an engineer to…

> Instead of spending hours getting two or three systems to integrate with mine with the proper OAuth scopes or SAML and so on As someone who's job is handling oauth and saml scope, I am not convinced anyone can get these right. Saml atleast acts nice, oauth on the other hand is a fucking nightmare.

oauth is the one area where I genuinely trust the LLM more than myself. not because it gets it right but because at least it reads all the docs instead of rage-quitting after the third wrong scope

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#389

Post by sigbottle »

Terr_ wrote: post #328
elgertam wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know where LLMs boost me the most? When I need to integrate a bunch of systems together, each with their own sets of documentation. Instead of spending hours getting two or three systems to integrate with mine with the proper OAuth scopes or SAML and so on, an LLM can get me working integrations in a short time. None of that is ever going to be innovative; it's purely an exercise in perseverance as an engineer to…

The worst integration problems tend to be conceptual mismatches between the systems, where--even with the same names--they have different definitions and ideas of how things work. That's a category of problem I wouldn't expect a text-based system to detect very well.. Though it might disguise the problem with a solution that seems to work until it blows up one day or people discover a lot of hard-to-fix data.

This is fundamental. Well, not really - a strategy SV tried to use is absolute market dominance to the point where you have to integrate with them. But in spaces where true interoperability is required, it's just philosophically hard. People don't mean the same thing.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#390

Post by faangguyindia »

lateforwork wrote: post #71

Chris Lattner, inventor of the Swift programming language recently took a look at a compiler entirely written by Claude AI. Lattner found nothing innovative in the code generated by AI [1]. And this is why humans will be needed to advance the state of the art. AI tends to accept conventional wisdom. Because of this, it struggles with genuine critical thinking and cannot independently advance the state of the art. AI…

>AI tends to accept conventional wisdom. Because of this, it struggles with genuine critical thinking and cannot independently advance the state of the art.

all AI works on patterns, it's not very different from playing chess. Chess Engines use similar method, learn patterns then use them.

While it's true training data is what creates pattern, so you do not have any new "pattern" which is also not already in data

but interesting thing is when pattern is applied to External World -> you get some effect

when the pattern again works on this effect -> it creates some other effect

This is also how your came into existence through genetic recombination.

Even though your ancestral dna is being copied forward, the the data is lossy and effect of environment can be profoundly seen. Yet you probably don't look very different from your grandparents, but your grandchildren may look very different from your grandparents. at same point you are so many orders moved from the "original" pattern that it's indistinguishable from "new thing"

in simple terms, combinatorial explosion + environment interaction

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