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Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

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Re: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

#541

I work for Google, and I just got done with my work day. I was just writing I guess what you'd call "AI generated code." But the code completion engine is basically just good at finishing the lines I'm writing. If I'm writing "function getAc..." it's smart enough to complete to "function getActionHandler()", and maybe suggest the correct arguments and a decent jsdoc comment. So basically, it's a helpful productivity…

Do people find these AI auto complete things helpful? I was trying the XCode one and it kept suggesting API calls that don't exist. I spent more time fixing its errors than I would have spent typing the correct API call.

I often delete large chunks of it unread if it doesn't do what I expected. It's much like copy and paste; deleting code doesn't take long.

Re: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

#542
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if this can be accompanied by an increase in software quality That’s a huge “if”, and by your own admission not what’s happening now. > other LLM agents reviewing code, feeding in compile errors, letting other LLM agents interact with the produced code, etc. What a stupid future. Machines which make errors being “corrected” by machines which make errors in a death spiral. An unbelievable waste of figurative and lit…

> What a stupid future. Machines which make errors being “corrected” by machines which make errors in a death spiral. An unbelievable waste of figurative and literal energy. Humans are machines which make errors. Somehow, we got to the moon. The suggestion that errors just mindlessly compound and that there is no way around it, is what's stupid.

[deleted]

Re: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

#543

I work for Google, and I just got done with my work day. I was just writing I guess what you'd call "AI generated code." But the code completion engine is basically just good at finishing the lines I'm writing. If I'm writing "function getAc..." it's smart enough to complete to "function getActionHandler()", and maybe suggest the correct arguments and a decent jsdoc comment. So basically, it's a helpful productivity…

In my day to day, this still remains the main way I interact with AI coding tools. I regularly describe it as "The best snippet tool I've ever used (because it plays horseshoes)".

Horseshoes? As in “close enough”?

Re: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

#544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm continually surprised by the amount of negativity that accompanies these sort of statements. The direction of travel is very clear - LLM based systems will be writing more and more code at all companies. I don't think this is a bad thing - if this can be accompanied by an increase in software quality, which is possible. Right now its very hit and miss and everyone has examples of LLMs producing buggy or ridiculou…

Because there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding producing a lot of nonsense. Of course LLMs are a fantastic tool to improve productivity, but current LLM's cannot produce anything novel. They can only reproduce what they have seen.

But they assist developers and collect novel coding experience from their projects all the time. Each application of LLM creates feedback to the AI code - the human might leave it as is, slightly change it, or refuse it.

Re: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

#545

I work for Google, and I just got done with my work day. I was just writing I guess what you'd call "AI generated code." But the code completion engine is basically just good at finishing the lines I'm writing. If I'm writing "function getAc..." it's smart enough to complete to "function getActionHandler()", and maybe suggest the correct arguments and a decent jsdoc comment. So basically, it's a helpful productivity…

Does it make you 25% more productive?

If 25% of code was AI-written, wouldn't it be a 33[.333...]% increase in productivity?

Re: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

#546

Hi, I lead the teams responsible for our internal developer tools, including AI features. We work very closely with Google DeepMind to adapt Gemini models for Google-scale coding and other Software Engineering usecases. Google has a unique, massive monorepo which poses a lot of fun challenges when it comes to deploying AI capabilities at scale. 1. We take a lot of care to make sure the AI recommendations are safe and…

I'm continually surprised by the amount of negativity that accompanies these sort of statements. The direction of travel is very clear - LLM based systems will be writing more and more code at all companies. I don't think this is a bad thing - if this can be accompanied by an increase in software quality, which is possible. Right now its very hit and miss and everyone has examples of LLMs producing buggy or ridiculou…

My main gripe with this form of code generation is that is primarily used to generate “leaf” code. Code that will not be further adjusted or refactored into the right abstractions.

It is now very easy to sprinkle in regexes to validate user input , like email addresses, on every controller instead of using a central lib/utility for that.

In the hands of a skilled engineer it is a good tool. But for the rest it mainly serves to output more garbage at a higher rate.

Re: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my friends put it best: I just did a months worth of experimentation in two hours.

I find this hard to believe. Can someone give me an example of something that takes months that AI can correctly do in hours?

Not hours; but days instead of months: porting around 30k lines of legacy livescript project to typescript. Most of the work is in tweaking a prompt for Claude (using Aider) so the porting process is done correctly.

Re: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What a stupid future. Machines which make errors being “corrected” by machines which make errors in a death spiral. An unbelievable waste of figurative and literal energy. Humans are machines which make errors. Somehow, we got to the moon. The suggestion that errors just mindlessly compound and that there is no way around it, is what's stupid.

To err is human. To err at scale is AI.

err, "hallucinate" is the euphemism you're looking for. ;)

Re: Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company's new code is created by AI

#550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm continually surprised by the amount of negativity that accompanies these sort of statements. The direction of travel is very clear - LLM based systems will be writing more and more code at all companies. I don't think this is a bad thing - if this can be accompanied by an increase in software quality, which is possible. Right now its very hit and miss and everyone has examples of LLMs producing buggy or ridiculou…

I'm not really seeing this direction of travel. I hear a lot of claims, but they are always 3rd person. I don't know or work with any engineers who rely heavily on these tools for productivity. I don't even see any convincing videos on Youtube. Just show me on engineer sitting down with theses tools for a couple hours and writing a feature that would normally take a couple of days. I'll believe it when I see it.

you said it, bro.
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