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

businessinsider.com

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

#601

Post by robertlagrant »

arisAlexis wrote: post #592
simplyluke wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how I’ve used copilot for over a year now. It’s really helpful! Especially with repetitive code. Certainly worth what my employer pays for it. The general public has a very different idea of that though and I frequently meet people very surprised the entire profession hasn’t been automated yet based on headlines like this.

Because you are using it like that doesn't mean that it can't be used for the whole stack and on its own and the public including laymen such as the Nvidia CEO and Sam think that yes, we (I'm a dev) will be replaced. Plan accordingly my friend.

> Because you are using it like that doesn't mean that it can't be used for the whole stack

Well no, but we have no evidence it can be used for the whole stack, whatever that means.

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

#602

Post by Towaway69 »

olalonde wrote: post #595
hitradostava wrote: post #95

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 continually surprised by the amount of negativity Maybe I'm just old, but to me, LLMs feel like magic. A decade ago, anyone predicting their future capabilities would have been laughed at.

Magic Makes Money - the more magical something seems, the more people are willing to pay for that something.

The discussion here seems to bare this out: CEO claims AI is magical, here the truth becomes that it’s just an auto-complete engine.

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

#603

Post by robertlagrant »

moron4hire wrote: post #557
imchillyb wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that those who cherished the written word thought similar thoughts when the printing press was invented, when the typewriter was invented, and before excel took over bookkeeping. My productivity isn't so much enhanced. It's only 1%... 2%... 5%... globally, for each employee. Have you ever dabbled with, mucked around in, a command line? Autocomplete functions there save millions of man-hour-typing-units per…

This is a fallacy because there is no way to add up 1% savings across 100 employees into an extra full time employee. Work gets scheduled on short time frames. 5% savings isn't enough to change the schedule for any one person. At most, it gives me time to grab an extra coffee. I can't string together "foregone extra coffees" into "more tasks/days in the schedule".

This. I had the same conversation years ago with someone who said "imagine if Windows booted 30s faster, all the productivity gains across the world!" And I said the same thing you did: people turn their computer on and then make a cup of tea.

Now making a kettle faster? That might actually be something.

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

#604

Post by Towaway69 »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #442
hitradostava wrote: post #95

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…

> The direction of travel is very clear And if we get 9 women we can produce a baby in a single month. There's no guarantee such progression will continue. Indeed, there's much more evidence it is coming to a a halt.

It might also be an example of 80/20 - we're just entering the 20% of features that take 80% of the time & effort.

It might be possible but will shareholders/investors foot the bill for the 80% that they still have to pay.

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

#605

Post by saagarjha »

OnionBlender wrote: post #528
asdfman123 wrote: post #398

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.

The one Xcode has is particularly bad, unfortunately.

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

#606

Post by saagarjha »

card_zero wrote: post #581
rustcleaner wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not if there was also an 8.333̅% increase in slacking off. Wait, no. That should be based on how much slacking off Google employees do ordinarily, an unknown quantity.

You can just check Memegen traffic to figure that one out.

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

#607

Post by remus »

asdfman123 wrote: post #565
atoav wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is basically the google CEO saying "a quarter of our terminal inputs is written by a glorified tab completion"?

Yes. Most AI hype is this bad. They have to justify the valuations.

"tab completion good enough to write 25% of code" feels like a pretty good hit rate to me! Especially when you consider that a good chink of the other 75% is going to be the complex, detailed stuff where you probably want someone thinking about it fairly carefully.

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

#608

Post by vbezhenar »

OnionBlender wrote: post #528
asdfman123 wrote: post #398

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 mostly use one-line completes and they are pretty good. Also I really like when Copilot generates boilerplate like

    if err != nil {
      return fmt.Errorf("Cannot open settings: %w", err);
    }

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

#609

Post by Maxion »

remus wrote: post #607
asdfman123 wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Most AI hype is this bad. They have to justify the valuations.

"tab completion good enough to write 25% of code" feels like a pretty good hit rate to me! Especially when you consider that a good chink of the other 75% is going to be the complex, detailed stuff where you probably want someone thinking about it fairly carefully.

For me it's really goddam satisfying having good autocomplete, especially when you are just writing boilerplate lines of code to get the code into a state where you actually get to work on the fun stuff (ther harder problems).

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

#610

Post by 0points »

OnionBlender wrote: post #528
asdfman123 wrote: post #398

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.

No, not at all.

"classic" intellisense is reliable, so why introduce random source in the process?

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