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AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

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Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#61

Post by armchairhacker »

squigz wrote: post #48
armchairhacker wrote: post #40

OP’s code (at least plausibly) helped him. From https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/pull/14369#issuecomment-35568... > Damn, I can’t debug OCaml on my Mac because there’s no DWARF info…But, hey, there’s AI and it seems to one-shot fairly complex stuff in different languages, from just a Github issue…My needs are finally taken care of! So I do believe using an LLM to generate a big feature like OP did can be very useful, s…

> cause unforeseen problems This is literally the point of having software developers, PR reviews, and other such things. To help prevent such problems. What you're describing sounds like security hell, to say nothing of the support nightmare.

The point is that one-off LLM-generated projects don’t get support. If a vibe-coder needs to solve a problem and their LLM can’t, they can hire a real developer. If a vibe-coded project gets popular and starts breaking, the people who decided to rely on it can pool a fund and hire real developers to fix it, probably by rewriting the entire thing from scratch. If a vibe-coded project becomes so popular that people start being pressured or indirectly forced to rely on it, then there’s an issue; but I’m saying that important shared codebases shouldn’t have unreviewed LLM-generated code, it’s OK for unimportant code like one-off features.

And people still shouldn’t be using LLM-generated projects when security or reliability is required. For mundane tasks, I can’t imagine worse security or reliability consequences from those projects, than existing projects that use small untrusted dependencies.

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#63

Post by squigz »

armchairhacker wrote: post #61
squigz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cause unforeseen problems This is literally the point of having software developers, PR reviews, and other such things. To help prevent such problems. What you're describing sounds like security hell, to say nothing of the support nightmare.

The point is that one-off LLM-generated projects don’t get support. If a vibe-coder needs to solve a problem and their LLM can’t, they can hire a real developer. If a vibe-coded project gets popular and starts breaking, the people who decided to rely on it can pool a fund and hire real developers to fix it, probably by rewriting the entire thing from scratch. If a vibe-coded project becomes so popular that people sta…

> The point is that one-off LLM-generated projects don’t get support.

Just sounds like more headaches for maintainers and those of us who provide support for FOSS. 5 hours into trying to pin down an issue and the user suddenly remembers they generated some code 3 years ago.

> If a vibe-coder needs to solve a problem and their LLM can’t, they can hire a real developer. If a vibe-coded project gets popular and starts breaking, whoever decides to use it can pool a fund to hire real developers to fix it, probably by rewriting the entire thing from scratch.

Considering FOSS already has a funding problem, you seem very optimistic about this happening.

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#64

Post by greener_grass »

autumnstwilight wrote: post #7

>>> Here's my question: why did the files that you submitted name Mark Shinwell as the author? >>> Beats me. AI decided to do so and I didn't question it. Really sums the whole thing up...

Is the real Mark Shinwell on here?

https://github.com/mshinwell

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#65

Post by sheepscreek »

oliwarner wrote: post #37

There are LLMs with more self-awareness than this guy. Repeatedly using AI to answer questions about the legitimacy of commits from an AI, to people who are clearly skeptical is breathtakingly dense. At least they're open about it. I did love the ~"I'll help maintain this trash mountain, but I'll need paying". Classy.

Kudos to the community folks for maintaining their composure and offering constructive criticism. That alone makes me want to contribute something to the OCaml ecosystem - not like this dude of course :)

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#66

Post by raincole »

fzaninotto wrote: post #45

I've closed my share of AI-generated PRs on some OSS repositories I maintain. These contributors seem to jump from one project to another, until their contribution is accepted (recognized ?). I wonder how long the open-source ecosystem will be able to resist this wave. The burden of reviewing AI-generated PRs is already not sustainable for maintainers, and the number of real open-source contributors is decreasing. Si…

Open-source maintainers will resist this wave even just because they don't want to be mocked on HN/Reddit/their own forums.

It's corporation software that we need to worry about.

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#67

Post by forgetfulness »

jebarker wrote: post #35
ares623 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had a magic wand I would wish for 2 parallel open source communities diverging from today. One path continues on the track it has always been on, human written and maintained. The other is fully on the AI track. Massive PRs with reviewers rubber stamping them. I’d love to see which track comes out ahead. Edit: in fact, perhaps there are open source projects already fully embracing AI authored contributions?

How would you define “ahead”?

Able to make changes preserving correctness over time

Vibecoding reminds me sharply of the height of the Rails hype, products quickly rushed to market off the backs of a slurry of gems and autoimports inserted on generated code, the original authors dipping and teams of maintainers then screeching into a halt

Here the bots will pigheadedly heap one 9000 lines PR onto another, shredding the code base to bits but making it look like a lot of work in the process

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#68

Post by pluc »

To all the AI apologists here I'd like to submit a simple scenario to you and hear your answer: you use AI to create a keynote speech on a topic you needed to use AI to write. At the end of your speech, people ask you questions about the contents of your speech. What do you say?

This is the same.

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#69

Post by jebarker »

forgetfulness wrote: post #67
jebarker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you define “ahead”?

Able to make changes preserving correctness over time Vibecoding reminds me sharply of the height of the Rails hype, products quickly rushed to market off the backs of a slurry of gems and autoimports inserted on generated code, the original authors dipping and teams of maintainers then screeching into a halt Here the bots will pigheadedly heap one 9000 lines PR onto another, shredding the code base to bits but makin…

Yes, preserving correctness seems like a good metric. My immediate reaction was to think that the parent comment was saying they’d like to see this comparison because AI will come out ahead. On this metric and based on current AI coding it’s hard to see that being the case or even possible to verify.

Re: AI has a deep understanding of how this code works

#70

Post by genewitch »

pluc wrote: post #68

To all the AI apologists here I'd like to submit a simple scenario to you and hear your answer: you use AI to create a keynote speech on a topic you needed to use AI to write. At the end of your speech, people ask you questions about the contents of your speech. What do you say? This is the same.

"hey bixby, answer the next question you hear"
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