61–70 of 496 posts
The other side of this is that open source projects that allow AI tools will be more restrictive towards new contributors. This already happens to some degree on large software projects with corporate backing (Web engines, compilers, etc.), where it is often not trivial to start contributing as an independent individual. Reasonable people can disagree on whether one approach is inherently better than the other, as ul…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why use someone's project when you can just have the robot write your own? I've been thinking about this a bunch recently, and I've realized that the thing I value most in software now isn't robust tests or thorough documentation - an LLM can spit those out in a few minutes. It's usage. I want to use software which other people have used before me. I want them to have encountered the bugs and sharp edges and sanded…
Yep. I realised the same. No one reads docs, or goes through tests. Either ways it's easy to write useless tests. And easy to write useless docs. Idt most even read the code. Now the difference is that it has become possible to write useless code. So it's just the fact that others have already gone through the motions before I did. That's it really. I suppose in commercial settings, this is even more true and perhaps…
I regularly do both when trying to use library, especially unfamiliar to me.
> This makes a lot of sense to me. It relates to an idea I've seen circulating elsewhere: if a PR was mostly written by an LLM, why should a project maintainer spend time reviewing and discussing that PR as opposed to firing up their own LLM to solve the same problem? The same argument applies to open source itself. Why use someone's project when you can just have the robot write your own? It's especially true if the…
That only holds true for the smallest tier of open source projects. Past a certain point of complexity, it's unlikely you can expect the robot to read your mind well enough to provide something of high quality and 'outstanding for just you'. The Zig project is certainly far beyond such capability.
> This makes a lot of sense to me. It relates to an idea I've seen circulating elsewhere: if a PR was mostly written by an LLM, why should a project maintainer spend time reviewing and discussing that PR as opposed to firing up their own LLM to solve the same problem? The same argument applies to open source itself. Why use someone's project when you can just have the robot write your own? It's especially true if the…
Iff it is doable, then it would be worth considering it as alternative.
> It also stimulates the labor economy, because you have lots of people everywhere reinventing open source projects with their LLMs.
not sure what you mean by that
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When somebody comments PR with “Incredible work, Jacob. It is an honor to call you my colleague.” then it's safe to assume it's out of the ordinary contribution. Pretty much falling outside of the “in all likelyhood”. 3000 line LLM commit is not that.
How would you differentiate a 3000 line LLM commit made by the best models and good AI processes from a 3000 line commit made by the best human developer? edit Okay, I set the bar too high here with "best human developer" and vague "good AI processes". My bad. Yes, LLM is not quite there yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you differentiate a 3000 line LLM commit made by the best models and good AI processes from a 3000 line commit made by the best human developer? edit Okay, I set the bar too high here with "best human developer" and vague "good AI processes". My bad. Yes, LLM is not quite there yet.
A personal relationship and trust, as seems to be the case here?
> This makes a lot of sense to me. It relates to an idea I've seen circulating elsewhere: if a PR was mostly written by an LLM, why should a project maintainer spend time reviewing and discussing that PR as opposed to firing up their own LLM to solve the same problem? The same argument applies to open source itself. Why use someone's project when you can just have the robot write your own? It's especially true if the…
Because it is incredibly expensive to write a replacement for semi-complex software? Good luck asking frontier models to write a replacement for Zig, Docker, VSCode, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What’s the point in debating the PR quality? Because the pro-group are whining that the policy is preventing the merge, when in actual fact even if the policy did not exist, the PR is crap anyway.
Of course the policy is preventing the merge. That’s literally the point of the policy…
In this case it isn't the blocker - the fact that the dev took the time to read the PR in detail, comment on it, and provide reasons why it could not be merged makes it very clear to me that the policy wasn't the blocker.
If they were going to enforce the policy for this PR, they wouldn't have bothered to read it. The only reason to read it is to see if the policy is waived for this specific PR.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why use someone's project when you can just have the robot write your own? I've been thinking about this a bunch recently, and I've realized that the thing I value most in software now isn't robust tests or thorough documentation - an LLM can spit those out in a few minutes. It's usage. I want to use software which other people have used before me. I want them to have encountered the bugs and sharp edges and sanded…
I value software that reveals knowledge. The frontier LLMs were trained on all the code that institutions had been keeping to themselves. So they're revealing programing know-how on a scale that just wasn't possible with open source. LLMs are the ultimate Prometheus. Information is more accessible and useful now than it's ever been.
Lolz! I haven’t encountered “code that institutions had been keeping to themselves” that got even remotely close to OSS in quality.