3 ms·

So, this is very impressive no matter how you slice it. But the "recipe" it was given was very specific and rules-based. You still have to do some of the most i

So, this is very impressive no matter how you slice it. But the "recipe" it was given was very specific and rules-based. You still have to do some of the most important mental work of programming. But it's a hell of a lever. I've long thought that the end game for most professional programmers is to be sort of technical program managers, writing rigorous specs for AI to turn into code, and then correcting/tweaking the code. GH Copilot is already surprisingly good at this, and GPT shows just how much more capable it's going to get. For those of us who actually like the break-it-down-to-literal-code part of programming, it's... mixed news at best. But there's likely going to be use for humans who are good at this kind of deconstructive thinking for a long time.

ecopoesis 4y ago
At what point are “rigorous specs” just another, higher-level programming language? We’ve already moved the needle on language “high-level”-ness without AI. The Kotlin and Java I write today is orders of magnitude more expressive than the C of the 70s. What about AI is going to change how programming languages climb the abstraction ladder?
EGreg 4y ago
Why can’t AI do that, too? I highly doubt whatevee people say “the end game” is for a profession given the progress of technology. That’s like talking about the endgame for horse trainers, but then we got cars and then self-driving cars. Now that computers are around, self-managing everything is around the corner. But what people are really NOT getting is that you can swarm these AIs and take over any community or network gradually, amassing their karma points and social capital. And deploy it in any way you wish, including flooding these network with fake news. And including complex strategies to sabotage any opposition (by gradually and unrelentingly getting them embroiled in multiple scandals and arguments online and getting own followers to abandon them out of frustration). I see a future where various groups deploy AI swarms and in about 5-10 years take over their respective networks. Public networks will be totally unreliable as a source of any “truth”, but people won’t realize that. You think that you’re safe in more exclusive networks and that moderators like @dang will save you on here, but the reality is that amassing karma and upvotes is a measurable metric. As long as sites allow anyone to create an account, these “sybil attacks” can now be enhanced. Think content farms tricking Google into ranking them highly. But automated and super organized together. I predict that social networks will PREFER bots, just as we now prefer Google Maps over human directions, or Googling instead of asking our human parents and teachers. They will come in sheep’s clothing and can not just impersonate anyone’s style but also can switch it up easily to amass karma points. A regular person can keep some things in memory, but the bots will remember everything, the entire history of all their adversaries’ conversations.

ecopoesis 4y ago

At what point are “rigorous specs” just another, higher-level programming language? We’ve already moved the needle on language “high-level”-ness without AI. The Kotlin and Java I write today is orders of magnitude more expressive than the C of the 70s. What about AI is going to change how programming languages climb the abstraction ladder?

EGreg 4y ago

Why can’t AI do that, too? I highly doubt whatevee people say “the end game” is for a profession given the progress of technology. That’s like talking about the endgame for horse trainers, but then we got cars and then self-driving cars. Now that computers are around, self-managing everything is around the corner. But what people are really NOT getting is that you can swarm these AIs and take over any community or network gradually, amassing their karma points and social capital. And deploy it in any way you wish, including flooding these network with fake news. And including complex strategies to sabotage any opposition (by gradually and unrelentingly getting them embroiled in multiple scandals and arguments online and getting own followers to abandon them out of frustration). I see a future where various groups deploy AI swarms and in about 5-10 years take over their respective networks. Public networks will be totally unreliable as a source of any “truth”, but people won’t realize that. You think that you’re safe in more exclusive networks and that moderators like @dang will save you on here, but the reality is that amassing karma and upvotes is a measurable metric. As long as sites allow anyone to create an account, these “sybil attacks” can now be enhanced. Think content farms tricking Google into ranking them highly. But automated and super organized together. I predict that social networks will PREFER bots, just as we now prefer Google Maps over human directions, or Googling instead of asking our human parents and teachers. They will come in sheep’s clothing and can not just impersonate anyone’s style but also can switch it up easily to amass karma points. A regular person can keep some things in memory, but the bots will remember everything, the entire history of all their adversaries’ conversations.