5 ms·

The Language Wars Are Over: ChatGPT Won

20 points by kbourgoin 4y ago

brucethemoose2 4y ago
> When most code is machine-generated, how much you like a language simply doesn’t matter. Other factors will be more important when choosing what to use. Performance, tooling, and knowledge of how to operate it at scale will all be more important than the language itself. But the popularity of the language does matter. "Write function in Python with numpy" is going to work way better than "Write function in SYCL" because there is orders of magnitude more example code, and LLM usage is only going to exacerbate the issue.
- kbourgoin 4y ago
  I couldn't agree more. Popularity matters because of training data availability, not that a language is pleasant to write. It means Python probably still has a long life ahead of it, but newcomers have a much higher barrier to entry.
  - verdverm 4y ago
    I'm not sure I agree, there was an interesting result where reading the game instructions drastically reduced training effort. https://singularityhub.com/2023/03/10/an-ai-learned-to-play-atari-6000-times-faster-by-reading-the-instructions/ https://singularityhub.com/2023/03/10/an-ai-learned-to-play-... It seems quite plausible that a well written language spec and fewer examples will give the model enough to work with.
    - aatd86 4y ago
      One still needs libraries and APIs. The ecosystem matters.
      - abraxas 4y ago
        That could be queried by the LLM as needed. Tons of work has been done on giving LLMs long term memory
        verdverm 4y ago
        I wouldn't really call that long term memory, we don't consider stuff we look up to be in our long term memory.
      - verdverm 4y ago
        Could not those libraries and ecosystem projects be developed by the LLM? It could be a great way to build out rapidly with low cost, especially if you can get a mapping from another, broader language, to your own.
        aatd86 3y ago
        I don't think it will ever be possible below the point of reaching some form of AGI. But even if it were, it's more about design and not sure that a machine will have the same empathy towards a human cognitive shortcomings.
saurik 4y ago
In the same sense that it is almost impossible for a human to write secure code in C, the same is going to be true for ChatGPT, as it thinks more like a human than a machine and was essentially trained to make mistakes like a human would. The LLM isn't some kind of god; and, frankly, if it were, that is going to be a Terminator-level of problem we are going to be dealing with and not some kind of panacea.
QuadrupleA 4y ago
Yawn. And currencies are dead because of crypto. And factories are dead because we all have 3D printers on our desk. If you've had hands-on experience coding with ChatGPT (or 3D printing), you'll know it has huge blind spots and limitations. It's impressive, but it's a long way from fizzbuzz and fibonacci to comprehending and iteratively improving on a large codebase, running all the related tools, operating and testing a GUI as a user, etc. Excited to see what happens, but I wish people would delve into the details a bit more and not always make these crazy extrapolations based on first impressions.
- abraxas 4y ago
  You are not even responding to the point made in the article but instead ranting about the limitations of ChatGPT which is the fashion on HN hence the top comment. The idea that programming languages are getting another layer of abstraction is both fascinating and intuitively correct. This has been a dream in the industry since my first steps into the programming world in the early eighties. We even had a word for it, I think it was called a fifth generation language. It has been a long time coming as I remember that term being discussed in computer magazines in 1985. But here we are and I can't believe I'm far more excited about this than all you young ones.
  - QuadrupleA 4y ago
    The point of the article (and your point) seems to be that programming languages are now obsolete, and will be secondary to English prompting of LLMs. So the choice of language no longer matters, GPTs will write it all. And I'm just saying, having hooked up ChatGPT to my python interpreters, my text editor, my IDE - we're definitely not there yet, and I'm not totally convinced there aren't some fundamental limits to the fixed-context next-token-prediction paradigm. You have to be very precise and technical in your prompts, you have to be working on toy isolated problems, and you have to watch it like a hawk and fix a lot of subtle errors (it's a good mimic, which has the unfortunate effect of making its errors harder to spot). And, it doesn't (yet) have a visual interface to see what e.g. a web app is doing interactively, click its buttons, see "soft" bugs or confusing UI aspects, poke around in dev tools, etc. I'm sure that's coming (researchers are working on these multimodal models), but I have my doubts we're going to just turn over trust fully to the next generation of LLMs and let them write everything in brainfuck or whatever. Not trying to poo-poo LLMs or score cheap HN dunks here, this stuff is amazing - but the hype has gotten a little disconnected from reality, so some balance is good I think.
than3 4y ago
The writers show they have no credibility, its incredibly stupid both what they say, and what they specifically don't say. Its very malign and manipulative.
garquis 4y ago
Regardless of who or what writes it, readability and ease of understanding code doesn’t become irrelevant. If 50% of code is being generated by something else, seem like it becomes even more important

20 points by kbourgoin 4y ago

> When most code is machine-generated, how much you like a language simply doesn’t matter. Other factors will be more important when choosing what to use. Performance, tooling, and knowledge of how to operate it at scale will all be more important than the language itself. But the popularity of the language does matter. "Write function in Python with numpy" is going to work way better than "Write function in SYCL" because there is orders of magnitude more example code, and LLM usage is only going to exacerbate the issue.

kbourgoin 4y ago
I couldn't agree more. Popularity matters because of training data availability, not that a language is pleasant to write. It means Python probably still has a long life ahead of it, but newcomers have a much higher barrier to entry.
- verdverm 4y ago
  I'm not sure I agree, there was an interesting result where reading the game instructions drastically reduced training effort. https://singularityhub.com/2023/03/10/an-ai-learned-to-play-atari-6000-times-faster-by-reading-the-instructions/ https://singularityhub.com/2023/03/10/an-ai-learned-to-play-... It seems quite plausible that a well written language spec and fewer examples will give the model enough to work with.
  - aatd86 4y ago
    One still needs libraries and APIs. The ecosystem matters.
    - abraxas 4y ago
      That could be queried by the LLM as needed. Tons of work has been done on giving LLMs long term memory
      - verdverm 4y ago
        I wouldn't really call that long term memory, we don't consider stuff we look up to be in our long term memory.
    - verdverm 4y ago
      Could not those libraries and ecosystem projects be developed by the LLM? It could be a great way to build out rapidly with low cost, especially if you can get a mapping from another, broader language, to your own.
      - aatd86 3y ago
        I don't think it will ever be possible below the point of reaching some form of AGI. But even if it were, it's more about design and not sure that a machine will have the same empathy towards a human cognitive shortcomings.

saurik 4y ago

In the same sense that it is almost impossible for a human to write secure code in C, the same is going to be true for ChatGPT, as it thinks more like a human than a machine and was essentially trained to make mistakes like a human would. The LLM isn't some kind of god; and, frankly, if it were, that is going to be a Terminator-level of problem we are going to be dealing with and not some kind of panacea.

QuadrupleA 4y ago

Yawn. And currencies are dead because of crypto. And factories are dead because we all have 3D printers on our desk. If you've had hands-on experience coding with ChatGPT (or 3D printing), you'll know it has huge blind spots and limitations. It's impressive, but it's a long way from fizzbuzz and fibonacci to comprehending and iteratively improving on a large codebase, running all the related tools, operating and testing a GUI as a user, etc. Excited to see what happens, but I wish people would delve into the details a bit more and not always make these crazy extrapolations based on first impressions.

abraxas 4y ago
You are not even responding to the point made in the article but instead ranting about the limitations of ChatGPT which is the fashion on HN hence the top comment. The idea that programming languages are getting another layer of abstraction is both fascinating and intuitively correct. This has been a dream in the industry since my first steps into the programming world in the early eighties. We even had a word for it, I think it was called a fifth generation language. It has been a long time coming as I remember that term being discussed in computer magazines in 1985. But here we are and I can't believe I'm far more excited about this than all you young ones.
- QuadrupleA 4y ago
  The point of the article (and your point) seems to be that programming languages are now obsolete, and will be secondary to English prompting of LLMs. So the choice of language no longer matters, GPTs will write it all. And I'm just saying, having hooked up ChatGPT to my python interpreters, my text editor, my IDE - we're definitely not there yet, and I'm not totally convinced there aren't some fundamental limits to the fixed-context next-token-prediction paradigm. You have to be very precise and technical in your prompts, you have to be working on toy isolated problems, and you have to watch it like a hawk and fix a lot of subtle errors (it's a good mimic, which has the unfortunate effect of making its errors harder to spot). And, it doesn't (yet) have a visual interface to see what e.g. a web app is doing interactively, click its buttons, see "soft" bugs or confusing UI aspects, poke around in dev tools, etc. I'm sure that's coming (researchers are working on these multimodal models), but I have my doubts we're going to just turn over trust fully to the next generation of LLMs and let them write everything in brainfuck or whatever. Not trying to poo-poo LLMs or score cheap HN dunks here, this stuff is amazing - but the hype has gotten a little disconnected from reality, so some balance is good I think.

than3 4y ago

The writers show they have no credibility, its incredibly stupid both what they say, and what they specifically don't say. Its very malign and manipulative.

garquis 4y ago

Regardless of who or what writes it, readability and ease of understanding code doesn’t become irrelevant. If 50% of code is being generated by something else, seem like it becomes even more important