Random thought: What if "AI-assisted programming" becomes "human-assisted programming" instead? We human programmers no longer play the main role in producing code, and we become the "Copilot"?
Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
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Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#812Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest frustration with LLMs for me is people telling me I'm not promoting it in a good way. Just think about any product where they are selling a half baked product, and repeatedly telling the user you are not using it properly.
But that's not how most products work. If you buy a table saw and can't figure out how to cut a straight line in a piece of wood with it - or keep cutting your fingers off - but didn't take any time at all to learn how to use it, that's on you. Likewise a car, you have to take lessons and a test before you can use those! Why should LLMs be any different?
> But that's not how most products work.
That's exactly how most products work :-/
> If you buy a table saw and can't figure out how to cut a straight line in a piece of wood with it - or keep cutting your fingers off - but didn't take any time at all to learn how to use it, that's on you.
Of course - that's deterministic, so if you make a mistake and it comes out wrong, you can fix the mistake you made.
> Why should LLMs be any different?
Because they are not deterministic; you can't use experience with LLMs in any meaningful way. They may give you a different result when you run the same spec through the LLM a second time.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#813> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…
> For me, I initially got into programming because I wanted to ruin other people's websites, then I figured out I needed to know how to build websites first, then I found it more fun to create and share what I've done with others, and they tell me what they think of it. Talk about a good thing coming from bad intentions! Congratulations on shaking that demon.
It's pointless these days because most web sites are pre-ruined. ;)
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#814"Facts are facts"...
Well, yes. But an opinion on what is, indeed, a fact and not hype, is still an opinion.
Even flat-earthers can state that "facts are facts".
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#815Thanks for reading / commenting this post. Initially it seemed like I received a bunch of very negative comments, now I read most of the thread, and there are very good points, articulated with sensibility. Thank you. I wanted to provide some more context that is not part of the blog post. Since somebody may believe I don't enjoy / love the act of writing code. 1. I care a lot about programming, I love creating somet…
That's really interesting, but i'm wondering if this is as rational as it looks.
> we are going to be kinda of obsolete in what defined us, as a profession: the ability to write code
Is it a fact, really? I don't think "writing code" is a defining factor, maybe it's a prerequisite, as being able to write words hardly defines "a novelist".
Anyway, prompt writing skills might become obsolete quite soon. So the main question might be to know which trend of technological evolution to pick and when, in order not to be considered obsolete. A crystal ball might still be more relevant than LLMs for that.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#816Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, but: There's been a notable jump over the course of the last few months, to where I'd say it's inevitable. For a while I was holding out for them to hit a ceiling where we'd look back and laugh at the idea they'd ever replace human coders. Now, it seems much more like a matter of time. Ultimately I think over the next two years or so, Anthropic and OpenAI will evolve their product from "coding assistant" to "…
honestly i think they got the low hanging fruit already. they're bumping up against the limits of what it can do and while it's impressive it's not spectacular
Maybe I'm easily impressed, but that LLMs even work to output basic human-like text to me is bananas, and I do understand a bit of how it works, yet it's still up there as "Amazing that huge airplanes even can fly" is for me.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#817Mostly agree with the article; but the problem is not just about people getting fired, it's about the people not getting hired. How will we create experts in the future without newbies today?
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#818Guy who says he wrote a book about, has a YouTube channel about, and works for a company obsessed with AI says it's not all just slop.
Full story at 11.
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#819> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…
You’re right of course. For me there’s no flow state possible with LLM “coding”. That makes it feel miserable instead of joyous. Sitting around waiting while it spits out tokens that I then have to carefully look over and tweak feels like very hard work. Compared to entering flow and churning out those tokens myself, which feels effortless once I get going. Probably other people feel differently.
Why do you feel you need to "carefully look over and tweak" stuff?
Can you define code quality and the goal of the program in a deterministic way?
If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and is a duck, does it matter if it's actually a raven inside?
Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype
#820Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem I see is not so much in how you generate the code. It is about how to maintain the code. If you check in the AI generated code unchanged then do you start changing that code by hand later? Do you trust that in the future AI can fix bugs in your code. Or do you clean up the AI generated code first?
LLMs remove the familiarity of “I wrote this and deeply understand this”. In other words, everything is “legacy code” now ;-) For those who are less experienced with the constant surprises that legacy code bases can provide, LLMs are deeply unsettling.
As someone who started their first greenfield project 20 years into their career: Sounds like a Tuesday for me.
We have the tools and knowledge for working with legacy code, have had for decades. There are shelf-meters of books written about it.
It's just a different skillset.