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This thread perfectly captures what Karpathy was getting at. We're witnessing a fundamental shift where the interface to computing is changing from formal synta

This thread perfectly captures what Karpathy was getting at. We're witnessing a fundamental shift where the interface to computing is changing from formal syntax to natural language. But you can see people struggling to let go of the formal foundations they've built their careers on.

skydhash 1y ago
Not really. There’s a problem to be solved, and the solution is always best exprimed in formal notation, because we can then let computers do it and not worry about it. We already have natural languages for human systems and the only way it works is because of shared metaphors and punishment and rewards. Everyone is incentivized to do a good job.
neuronic 1y ago
It's called gatekeeping and the gatekeepers will be the ones left in the dust. This has been proven time and time again. Better learn to go with the flow - judging LLMs on linear improvements or even worse on today's performance is a fool's errand. Even if improvements level off and start plateauing, things will still get better and for careful guided, educated use LLMs have already become a great accelerator in many ways. StackOverflow is basically dead now which in itself is a fundamental shift from just 3-4 years ago.
norir 1y ago
Have you thought through the downsides of letting go of these formal foundations that have nothing to do with job preservation? This comes across as a rather cynical interpretation of the motivations of those who have concerns.
mkleczek 1y ago
This is why I call all this AI stuff BS. Using a formal language is a feature, not a bug. It is a cornerstone of all human engineering and scientific activity and is the _reason_ why these disciplines are successful. What you are describing (ie. ditching formal and using natural language) is moving humanity back towards magical thinking, shamanism and witchcraft.
- diggan 1y ago
  > is the _reason_ why these disciplines Would you say that ML isn't a successful discipline? ML is basically balancing between "formal language" (papers/algorithms) and "non-deterministic outcomes" (weights/inference) yet it seems useful in a wide range of applications, even if you don't think about LLMs at all. > towards magical thinking, shamanism and witchcraft. I kind of feel like if you want to make a point about how something is bullshit, you probably don't want to call it "magical thinking, shamanism and witchcraft" because no matter how good your point is, if you end up basically re-inventing the witch hunt, how is what you say not bullshit, just in the other way?
  - mkleczek 1y ago
    > Would you say that ML isn't a successful discipline? ML is basically balancing between "formal language" (papers/algorithms) and "non-deterministic outcomes" (weights/inference) yet it seems useful in a wide range of applications Usefulness of LLMs has yet to be proven. So far there is more marketing in it than actual, real world results. Especially comparing to civil and mechanical engineering, maths, electrical engineering and plethora of disciplines and methods that bring real world results.
    - diggan 1y ago
      > Usefulness of LLMs has yet to be proven. What about ML (Machine Learning) as a whole? I kind of wrote ML instead of LLMs just to avoid this specific tangent. Are you feelings about that field the same?
      - mkleczek 1y ago
        > What about ML (Machine Learning) as a whole? I kind of wrote ML instead of LLMs just to avoid this specific tangent. Are you feelings about that field the same? No - I only expressed my thoughts about using natural language for computing.
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    > Would you say that ML isn't a successful discipline? Not yet it isn't; all I am seeing are tools to replace programmers and artists :-/ Where are the tools to take in 400 recipes and spit out all of them in a formal structure (poster upthread literally gave up on trying to get an LLM to do this). Tools that can replace the 90% of office staff who aren't programmers? Maybe it's a successful low-code industry right now, it's not really a successful AI industry.
uncircle 1y ago
> This thread perfectly captures what Karpathy was getting at. We're witnessing a fundamental shift where the interface to computing is changing from formal syntax to natural language. Yes, telling a subordinate with natural language what you need is called being a product manager. Problem is, the subordinate has encyclopedic knowledge but it's also extremely dumb in many aspects. I guess this is good for people that got into CS and hate the craft so prefer doing management, but in many cases you still need in your team someone with a IQ higher than room temperature to deliver a product. The only "fundamental" shift here is killing the entry-level coder at the big corp tasked at doing menial and boilerplate tasks, when instead you can hire a mechanical replacement from an AI company for a few hundred dollars a month.
- sponnath 1y ago
  I think the only places where the entry-level coder is being killed are corps that never cared about the junior to senior pipeline. Some of them love off-shoring too so I'm not sure much has changed.
  - kevinventullo 1y ago
    “Wait… junior engineers don’t have short-term positive ROI?” “Never did.”
- bobxmax 1y ago
  > Problem is, the subordinate has encyclopedic knowledge but it's also extremely dumb in many aspects. Most PMs would say the same thin
otabdeveloper4 1y ago
> We're witnessing a fundamental shift where the interface to computing is changing from formal syntax to natural language. People have said this every year since the 1950's. No, it is not happening. LLMs won't help. Writing code is easy, it's understanding the problem domain is hard. LLMs won't help you understand the problem domain in a formal manner. (In fact they might make it even more difficult.)
- simplify 1y ago
  Let's be real, people have said similar things about AI too. It was all fluff, until it wasn't.
  - otabdeveloper4 1y ago
    AI still doesn't have a valid and sustainable business use case. People are just assuming that the hallucination and bullshitting issues will just go away with future magic releases, but they won't.
- andrepd 1y ago
  Exactly. It's the uncomfortable truths well xkcd.
megaman821 1y ago
Yep, that why I never write anything out using mathmatical expressions. Natural language only baby!
Eggpants 1y ago
No. Karpathy has long embraced the Silly-con valley “Fake it until you make it” mind set. One of his slides even had a frame of Tesla self driving video that was later revealed to be faked. It’s in his financial self interest to over inflate LLM’s beyond their “cool math bar trick” level. They are a lossy text compression technique with stolen text sources. All this “magic” is just function calls behind the scenes doing web/database/math/etc for the LLM. Anyone who claims LLMs have a soul either truly doesn’t understand how they work (association rules++) or has hitched their financial wagon to this grift. It’s the crypto coin bruhs looking for their next score.

skydhash 1y ago

Not really. There’s a problem to be solved, and the solution is always best exprimed in formal notation, because we can then let computers do it and not worry about it. We already have natural languages for human systems and the only way it works is because of shared metaphors and punishment and rewards. Everyone is incentivized to do a good job.

neuronic 1y ago

It's called gatekeeping and the gatekeepers will be the ones left in the dust. This has been proven time and time again. Better learn to go with the flow - judging LLMs on linear improvements or even worse on today's performance is a fool's errand. Even if improvements level off and start plateauing, things will still get better and for careful guided, educated use LLMs have already become a great accelerator in many ways. StackOverflow is basically dead now which in itself is a fundamental shift from just 3-4 years ago.

norir 1y ago

Have you thought through the downsides of letting go of these formal foundations that have nothing to do with job preservation? This comes across as a rather cynical interpretation of the motivations of those who have concerns.

mkleczek 1y ago

This is why I call all this AI stuff BS. Using a formal language is a feature, not a bug. It is a cornerstone of all human engineering and scientific activity and is the _reason_ why these disciplines are successful. What you are describing (ie. ditching formal and using natural language) is moving humanity back towards magical thinking, shamanism and witchcraft.

diggan 1y ago
> is the _reason_ why these disciplines Would you say that ML isn't a successful discipline? ML is basically balancing between "formal language" (papers/algorithms) and "non-deterministic outcomes" (weights/inference) yet it seems useful in a wide range of applications, even if you don't think about LLMs at all. > towards magical thinking, shamanism and witchcraft. I kind of feel like if you want to make a point about how something is bullshit, you probably don't want to call it "magical thinking, shamanism and witchcraft" because no matter how good your point is, if you end up basically re-inventing the witch hunt, how is what you say not bullshit, just in the other way?
- mkleczek 1y ago
  > Would you say that ML isn't a successful discipline? ML is basically balancing between "formal language" (papers/algorithms) and "non-deterministic outcomes" (weights/inference) yet it seems useful in a wide range of applications Usefulness of LLMs has yet to be proven. So far there is more marketing in it than actual, real world results. Especially comparing to civil and mechanical engineering, maths, electrical engineering and plethora of disciplines and methods that bring real world results.
  - diggan 1y ago
    > Usefulness of LLMs has yet to be proven. What about ML (Machine Learning) as a whole? I kind of wrote ML instead of LLMs just to avoid this specific tangent. Are you feelings about that field the same?
    - mkleczek 1y ago
      > What about ML (Machine Learning) as a whole? I kind of wrote ML instead of LLMs just to avoid this specific tangent. Are you feelings about that field the same? No - I only expressed my thoughts about using natural language for computing.
- lelanthran 1y ago
  > Would you say that ML isn't a successful discipline? Not yet it isn't; all I am seeing are tools to replace programmers and artists :-/ Where are the tools to take in 400 recipes and spit out all of them in a formal structure (poster upthread literally gave up on trying to get an LLM to do this). Tools that can replace the 90% of office staff who aren't programmers? Maybe it's a successful low-code industry right now, it's not really a successful AI industry.

uncircle 1y ago

> This thread perfectly captures what Karpathy was getting at. We're witnessing a fundamental shift where the interface to computing is changing from formal syntax to natural language. Yes, telling a subordinate with natural language what you need is called being a product manager. Problem is, the subordinate has encyclopedic knowledge but it's also extremely dumb in many aspects. I guess this is good for people that got into CS and hate the craft so prefer doing management, but in many cases you still need in your team someone with a IQ higher than room temperature to deliver a product. The only "fundamental" shift here is killing the entry-level coder at the big corp tasked at doing menial and boilerplate tasks, when instead you can hire a mechanical replacement from an AI company for a few hundred dollars a month.

sponnath 1y ago
I think the only places where the entry-level coder is being killed are corps that never cared about the junior to senior pipeline. Some of them love off-shoring too so I'm not sure much has changed.
- kevinventullo 1y ago
  “Wait… junior engineers don’t have short-term positive ROI?” “Never did.”
bobxmax 1y ago
> Problem is, the subordinate has encyclopedic knowledge but it's also extremely dumb in many aspects. Most PMs would say the same thin

otabdeveloper4 1y ago

> We're witnessing a fundamental shift where the interface to computing is changing from formal syntax to natural language. People have said this every year since the 1950's. No, it is not happening. LLMs won't help. Writing code is easy, it's understanding the problem domain is hard. LLMs won't help you understand the problem domain in a formal manner. (In fact they might make it even more difficult.)

simplify 1y ago
Let's be real, people have said similar things about AI too. It was all fluff, until it wasn't.
- otabdeveloper4 1y ago
  AI still doesn't have a valid and sustainable business use case. People are just assuming that the hallucination and bullshitting issues will just go away with future magic releases, but they won't.
andrepd 1y ago
Exactly. It's the uncomfortable truths well xkcd.

megaman821 1y ago

Yep, that why I never write anything out using mathmatical expressions. Natural language only baby!

Eggpants 1y ago

No. Karpathy has long embraced the Silly-con valley “Fake it until you make it” mind set. One of his slides even had a frame of Tesla self driving video that was later revealed to be faked. It’s in his financial self interest to over inflate LLM’s beyond their “cool math bar trick” level. They are a lossy text compression technique with stolen text sources. All this “magic” is just function calls behind the scenes doing web/database/math/etc for the LLM. Anyone who claims LLMs have a soul either truly doesn’t understand how they work (association rules++) or has hitched their financial wagon to this grift. It’s the crypto coin bruhs looking for their next score.