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This is the main "killer feature" I've personally experienced from GPT things: a much better contextual "search engine-ish" tool for combing through and correla

This is the main "killer feature" I've personally experienced from GPT things: a much better contextual "search engine-ish" tool for combing through and correlating different internal data sources (slack, wiki, jira, github branches, etc). AI code assistants have been a net neutral for me (they get enough idioms in C++ slightly incorrect that I have to spend a lot of time just reading the generated code thoroughly), but being able to say "tell me what the timeline for feature X is" and have it comb through a bunch of internal docs / tickets / git commit messages, etc, and give me a coherent answer with links is amazing.

aurareturn 2y ago
This is partly why I believe OS makers, Apple, Microsoft, Google, have a huge advantage in the future when it comes to LLMs. They control the OS so they can combine and feed all your digital information to an LLM in a seamless way. However, in the very long term, I think their advantage will go away because at some point, LLMs could get so good that you don't need an OS like iOS anymore. An LLM could simply become standalone - and function without a traditional OS. Therefore, I think the advantage for iOS, Android, Windows will increase in the next few years, but less powerful after that.
- thwarted 2y ago
  An LLM is an application that runs on an operating system like any other application. That the vendor of the operating system has tied it to the operating system is purely a marketing/force-it-onto-your-device/force-it-in-front-of-your-face play. It's forced bundling, just like Microsoft did with Internet Explorer 20 years ago.
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    I predict that OpenAI will try to circumvent iOS and Android by making their own device. I think it will be similar to Rabbit R1, but not a scam, and a lot more capable. They recently hired Jony Ive on a project - it could be this. I think it'll be a long term goal - maybe in 3-4 years, a device similar to the Rabbit R1 would be viable. It's far too early right now.
    - marcus_holmes 2y ago
      Even if this is true (and I'm not saying it's not), they probably won't create their own OS. They'd be smarter to do what Apple did and clone a BSD (or similar) rather than start afresh.
      - aurareturn 2y ago
        The LLM would become the OS.
        marcus_holmes 2y ago
        An LLM cannot "become" an OS. It can have an OS added to it, for sure, but that's a different thing. LLMs run on top of a software stack that runs on top of an OS. Incorporating that whole stack into a single binary does not mean it "becomes" an OS. And the point stands: you would not write a new OS, even to incorporate it into your LLM. You'd clone a BSD (or similar) and start there.
        aurareturn 2y ago
        I don't think you're getting the main point. The only application that this physical device would run is ChatGPT (or some successor). You won't be able to install other apps on it like a normal OS. Everything you do is inside this LLM. Underneath, it can be Linux, BSD, Unix, or nothing at all, whatever. It doesn't matter. That's not important. OS was just a convenient phrase to describe this idea.
        guitarlimeo 2y ago
        I got your main point from the first message, but still don't like redefining terminology like OS to mean what you did.
        aurareturn 2y ago
        Think of iOS and everything that it does such as downloading apps, opening apps, etc. Replace all of that with ChatGPT. No need to get to the technicals such as whether it's UNIX or Linux talking to the hardware. Just from a pure user experience standpoint, OpenAI would become iOS.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  I cannot tell you how much this echoes what people were saying during the dot com days :) Of course back then it was browsers and not LLMs. Looking back, people were both correct about this, yet we’re still having the same conversation about replacing the OS cartel.
- dash2 2y ago
  Good comment. From Apple's point of view, AI could be a disruptive innovation: they've spent billions making extremely user-friendly interfaces, but that could become irrelevant if I can just ask my device questions. But I think there will be a long period when people want both the traditional UI with buttons and sliders, and the AI that can do what you ask. (Analogy with phone keyboards where you can either speech-to-text, or slide to type, or type individual letters, or mix all three.)
aaronblohowiak 2y ago
>they get enough idioms in C++ slightly incorrect this is part of why I stay in python when doing ai-assisted programming; there's so much training information out there for python and I _generally_ don't care about if its slightly off-idiom, its still probably fine.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Yea, I was thumbs-down on ai-assisted programming because when I tested it out, I tried it by adding things to my existing C and C++ projects, and its suggestions were... kind of wild. Then, a few months later I gave it another chance when I was writing some Python and was impressed. Finally, I used it on a new-from-blank-text-file Rust project and was pretty much blown away.
  - ffujdefvjg 2y ago
    As someone who doesn't generally program, it was pretty good at getting me an init.lua set up for nvim with a bunch of plugins and some functions that would have taken me ages to do by hand. That said...it still took a day or two of working with it and troubleshooting everything, and while it's been reliable so far, I worry that it's not exactly idiomatic. I don't know enough to really say. What it's really good at is taking my description of something and pointing me in the right direction to do my own research. (two things that helped me with getting decent code were to describe the problem and desired solution, followed by a "Does that make sense?". This seems to get it to restate the problem itself and produce better solutions. The other thing was to copy the output into a fresh session, ask for a description of what the code does and what improvements could be made)
    - skydhash 2y ago
      Not saying that it’s a better way, but I started with vim by copying someone conf (on Github), removing all extraneous stuff, then slowly familiarizing myself with the rest. Then it was a matter of reading the docs when I wanted some configuration. I believe the first part is faster than dealing with an LLM, especially when dealing with an unfamiliar software.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Companies are going to have to do a lot less gatekeeping and siloing of data for this to really work. The companies that are totally transparent even internally are few and far between in my experience.

aurareturn 2y ago

This is partly why I believe OS makers, Apple, Microsoft, Google, have a huge advantage in the future when it comes to LLMs. They control the OS so they can combine and feed all your digital information to an LLM in a seamless way. However, in the very long term, I think their advantage will go away because at some point, LLMs could get so good that you don't need an OS like iOS anymore. An LLM could simply become standalone - and function without a traditional OS. Therefore, I think the advantage for iOS, Android, Windows will increase in the next few years, but less powerful after that.

thwarted 2y ago
An LLM is an application that runs on an operating system like any other application. That the vendor of the operating system has tied it to the operating system is purely a marketing/force-it-onto-your-device/force-it-in-front-of-your-face play. It's forced bundling, just like Microsoft did with Internet Explorer 20 years ago.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  I predict that OpenAI will try to circumvent iOS and Android by making their own device. I think it will be similar to Rabbit R1, but not a scam, and a lot more capable. They recently hired Jony Ive on a project - it could be this. I think it'll be a long term goal - maybe in 3-4 years, a device similar to the Rabbit R1 would be viable. It's far too early right now.
  - marcus_holmes 2y ago
    Even if this is true (and I'm not saying it's not), they probably won't create their own OS. They'd be smarter to do what Apple did and clone a BSD (or similar) rather than start afresh.
    - aurareturn 2y ago
      The LLM would become the OS.
      - marcus_holmes 2y ago
        An LLM cannot "become" an OS. It can have an OS added to it, for sure, but that's a different thing. LLMs run on top of a software stack that runs on top of an OS. Incorporating that whole stack into a single binary does not mean it "becomes" an OS. And the point stands: you would not write a new OS, even to incorporate it into your LLM. You'd clone a BSD (or similar) and start there.
        aurareturn 2y ago
        I don't think you're getting the main point. The only application that this physical device would run is ChatGPT (or some successor). You won't be able to install other apps on it like a normal OS. Everything you do is inside this LLM. Underneath, it can be Linux, BSD, Unix, or nothing at all, whatever. It doesn't matter. That's not important. OS was just a convenient phrase to describe this idea.
        guitarlimeo 2y ago
        I got your main point from the first message, but still don't like redefining terminology like OS to mean what you did.
        aurareturn 2y ago
        Think of iOS and everything that it does such as downloading apps, opening apps, etc. Replace all of that with ChatGPT. No need to get to the technicals such as whether it's UNIX or Linux talking to the hardware. Just from a pure user experience standpoint, OpenAI would become iOS.
matthewdgreen 2y ago
I cannot tell you how much this echoes what people were saying during the dot com days :) Of course back then it was browsers and not LLMs. Looking back, people were both correct about this, yet we’re still having the same conversation about replacing the OS cartel.
dash2 2y ago
Good comment. From Apple's point of view, AI could be a disruptive innovation: they've spent billions making extremely user-friendly interfaces, but that could become irrelevant if I can just ask my device questions. But I think there will be a long period when people want both the traditional UI with buttons and sliders, and the AI that can do what you ask. (Analogy with phone keyboards where you can either speech-to-text, or slide to type, or type individual letters, or mix all three.)

aaronblohowiak 2y ago

>they get enough idioms in C++ slightly incorrect this is part of why I stay in python when doing ai-assisted programming; there's so much training information out there for python and I _generally_ don't care about if its slightly off-idiom, its still probably fine.

ryandrake 2y ago
Yea, I was thumbs-down on ai-assisted programming because when I tested it out, I tried it by adding things to my existing C and C++ projects, and its suggestions were... kind of wild. Then, a few months later I gave it another chance when I was writing some Python and was impressed. Finally, I used it on a new-from-blank-text-file Rust project and was pretty much blown away.
- ffujdefvjg 2y ago
  As someone who doesn't generally program, it was pretty good at getting me an init.lua set up for nvim with a bunch of plugins and some functions that would have taken me ages to do by hand. That said...it still took a day or two of working with it and troubleshooting everything, and while it's been reliable so far, I worry that it's not exactly idiomatic. I don't know enough to really say. What it's really good at is taking my description of something and pointing me in the right direction to do my own research. (two things that helped me with getting decent code were to describe the problem and desired solution, followed by a "Does that make sense?". This seems to get it to restate the problem itself and produce better solutions. The other thing was to copy the output into a fresh session, ask for a description of what the code does and what improvements could be made)
  - skydhash 2y ago
    Not saying that it’s a better way, but I started with vim by copying someone conf (on Github), removing all extraneous stuff, then slowly familiarizing myself with the rest. Then it was a matter of reading the docs when I wanted some configuration. I believe the first part is faster than dealing with an LLM, especially when dealing with an unfamiliar software.

SoftTalker 2y ago

Companies are going to have to do a lot less gatekeeping and siloing of data for this to really work. The companies that are totally transparent even internally are few and far between in my experience.