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> I can’t imagine a world where code is written by computers, that’s maximum cruelty to me. We've been living in that world since the '80s, most of us; almost

> I can’t imagine a world where code is written by computers, that’s maximum cruelty to me. We've been living in that world since the '80s, most of us; almost nobody writes code anymore. Computers write all the code for us, via software we call "compilers", and we merely give the computers high-level instructions indicating what we want them to do. In fact the majority of programmers these days don't even bother to generate or interact with code, preferring to feed their instructions into interpreters instead!

AlbertCory 3y ago
Why do I think you've never had a job involving writing code? Python, Java, C++: it's all code, not "high-level instructions indicating what we want them to do" "feed their instructions into interpreters instead" : that's what "writing code" has meant, since the invention of COBOL and FORTRAN. If that weren't true, then liberal arts majors wouldn't need a code school to learn to do it.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  > Python, Java, C++: it's all code That is rather my point, which I perhaps expressed in too ironic a mode: when people newly discovering the capabilities of LLMs worry about the idea of machines writing code for us, I think they are missing historical perspective, in which we can clearly see layer after layer of machines writing code for us. Whatever mature form LLM-driven tools may take, operating them will ultimately be just another form of coding.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    > That is rather my point It was very well disguised, then. You said: "We've been living in that world since the '80s, most of us; almost nobody writes code anymore" which implies that only Assembler counts as "writing code."
    - marssaxman 3y ago
      Yes, indeed: a reductio ad absurdum, with respect to the original commenter's fears about a world where "code is written by computers". Alas, not all attempts at humor succeed; not for everyone, anyway.
gnarlouse 3y ago
To me this argument confuses automation with autonomy. It’s like arguing that we’ve had self driving machines since the 1800s because we had trains that can travel from the east to the west coast while navigating the terrain entirely on its own! Spoiler alert: they’re called railroad tracks.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  That's a useful perspective: we can help ourselves imagine what the future experience of a self-driving car trip might be like by analogy to the familiar experience of a train trip. In the same way, we need not fear a future in which machines write code for us, as the previous commenter did, because we can expect that transition to rhyme with previous transitions involving tools which automated code generation in other ways. We can expect that the use of LLM-based tools will feel just as natural, once they have settled in, as the use of compilers and interpreters does to us today.
  - gnarlouse 3y ago
    I am the previous commenter “stability” and “fragility” also rhyme

AlbertCory 3y ago

Why do I think you've never had a job involving writing code? Python, Java, C++: it's all code, not "high-level instructions indicating what we want them to do" "feed their instructions into interpreters instead" : that's what "writing code" has meant, since the invention of COBOL and FORTRAN. If that weren't true, then liberal arts majors wouldn't need a code school to learn to do it.

marssaxman 3y ago
> Python, Java, C++: it's all code That is rather my point, which I perhaps expressed in too ironic a mode: when people newly discovering the capabilities of LLMs worry about the idea of machines writing code for us, I think they are missing historical perspective, in which we can clearly see layer after layer of machines writing code for us. Whatever mature form LLM-driven tools may take, operating them will ultimately be just another form of coding.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  > That is rather my point It was very well disguised, then. You said: "We've been living in that world since the '80s, most of us; almost nobody writes code anymore" which implies that only Assembler counts as "writing code."
  - marssaxman 3y ago
    Yes, indeed: a reductio ad absurdum, with respect to the original commenter's fears about a world where "code is written by computers". Alas, not all attempts at humor succeed; not for everyone, anyway.

gnarlouse 3y ago

To me this argument confuses automation with autonomy. It’s like arguing that we’ve had self driving machines since the 1800s because we had trains that can travel from the east to the west coast while navigating the terrain entirely on its own! Spoiler alert: they’re called railroad tracks.

marssaxman 3y ago
That's a useful perspective: we can help ourselves imagine what the future experience of a self-driving car trip might be like by analogy to the familiar experience of a train trip. In the same way, we need not fear a future in which machines write code for us, as the previous commenter did, because we can expect that transition to rhyme with previous transitions involving tools which automated code generation in other ways. We can expect that the use of LLM-based tools will feel just as natural, once they have settled in, as the use of compilers and interpreters does to us today.
- gnarlouse 3y ago
  I am the previous commenter “stability” and “fragility” also rhyme