691–700 of 918 posts
"Wait 6 months" has been the call for 3-4 years now. You can't eulogize a profession that hasn't been killed, that's just mean.
Things have progressed much faster than even the most optimistic predictions, so every "wait 6 months" has come true. Just look at how the discourse has changed on HN. No-one is using the arguments from 6 months ago and any argument today will probably be equally moot in 6 months.
There's a commercial building under construction next to my office. I look down on the construction site, and those strapping young men are digging with their big excavators they've been using for years and taking away the dirt with truck and trailer. Why use a spade? Even those construction workers use the right sized tools. They ain't stupid.
Them using excavator and trucks etc to move dirt. Is the same as us using a compiler to compile code into an executable. LLM would be if the digging and hauling of the dirt happened without any people involved except the planning of logistics.
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You can’t reason about inference (or training) of LLMs on the semantic level. You can’t predict the output of an LLM for a specific input other than by running it. If you want the output to be different in a specific way, you can’t reason with precision that a particular modification of the input, or of the weights, will achieve the desired change (and only that change) in the output. Instead, it’s like a slot machin…
That’s like saying that the human brain is based on simple physical field equations, and therefore its behavior is easy to understand. Right, which is the point: LLMs are much more like human coworkers than compilers in terms of how you interact with them. Nobody would say that there's no point to working with other people because you can't predict their behavior exactly.
Human coworkers are much more predictable. A workplace where people act similarly to LLM would be a complete zoo. Imagine asking for an endpoint modification and the result is a broken backend. Or brainstorming with a PM and the reply are "you're absolutely right, whatever I was saying was completely wrong, but let me repeat it in a different manner".
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That’s like saying that the human brain is based on simple physical field equations, and therefore its behavior is easy to understand. Right, which is the point: LLMs are much more like human coworkers than compilers in terms of how you interact with them. Nobody would say that there's no point to working with other people because you can't predict their behavior exactly.
This thread is about what software developers like. It’s common knowledge that many programmers like working with computers because that’s different in specific ways from working with people. So saying that LLMs are just like people doesn’t help here.
That said, I do like having an LLM that I can treat like the crappy bosses on TV treat their employees. When it gets something totally wrong I can yell at it and it'll magically figure out the right solution, but still keep a chipper personality. That doesn't work with humans.
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That’s like saying that the human brain is based on simple physical field equations, and therefore its behavior is easy to understand. Right, which is the point: LLMs are much more like human coworkers than compilers in terms of how you interact with them. Nobody would say that there's no point to working with other people because you can't predict their behavior exactly.
This thread is about what software developers like. It’s common knowledge that many programmers like working with computers because that’s different in specific ways from working with people. So saying that LLMs are just like people doesn’t help here.
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> Those little black boxes of AI can be significantly demystified by, for example, watching a bunch of videos ( https://karpathy.ai/zero-to-hero.html ) and spending at least 40 hours of hard cognitive effort learning about it yourself. That's like saying you can understand humans by watching some physics or biology videos.
No it’s not Nobody has built a human so we don’t know how they work We know exactly how LLM technology works
> We were often surprised by what we saw in the model
https://www.anthropic.com/research/tracing-thoughts-language...
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This thread is about what software developers like. It’s common knowledge that many programmers like working with computers because that’s different in specific ways from working with people. So saying that LLMs are just like people doesn’t help here.
Yeah there's a reason there is a stereotype/trope about programmers not liking people. I like a lot of people. But I would hate to work with many of them even if I like hanging out with them. That said, I do like having an LLM that I can treat like the crappy bosses on TV treat their employees. When it gets something totally wrong I can yell at it and it'll magically figure out the right solution, but still keep a ch…
I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing. I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We're on the precipice of somet…
> I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. I agree!. One criticism I've heard is that half my colleagues don't write their own words anymore. They use ChatGPT to do it for them. Does this mean we've "lost" something? On the contrary! Those people probably would have spoken far fewer words into existence in the pre-AI era. But AI has enabled them to put pages and pages of text out into…
Are you for real? Quantity is not equal to Quality.
I'll be sure to dump a pile of trash in your living room. There wasn't much there before, but now there is lots of stuff. Better right?
I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing. I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We're on the precipice of somet…
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Good for you. But there are already so, so many posts and threads celebrating all of this. Everyone is different. Some of us enjoy the activity of programming by hand. This thread is for those us, to mourn.
You're still allowed to program by hand. Even in assembly language if you like.