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> even in the 70s people recognized that supersonic travel had real concrete issues with no solution in sight. I don't think LLMs share that characteristic toda

> even in the 70s people recognized that supersonic travel had real concrete issues with no solution in sight. I don't think LLMs share that characteristic today I think they pretty strongly do The solution seems to be "just lower your standards for acceptable margin of error to whatever the LLM is capable of producing" which should be concerning and absolutely unacceptable to anyone calling themselves an Engineer

Aeolun 1y ago
> absolutely unacceptable to anyone calling themselves an Engineer Isn’t that exactly what engineers do? Even very strong bridges aren’t designed to survive every possible eventuality.
- wrs 1y ago
  That's what a "margin of error" is. The margin of error of a bridge is predictable thanks to well-established techniques of physical analysis. An LLM system, on the other hand, can fail because you moved some punctuation around.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    > An LLM system, on the other hand, can fail because you moved some punctuation around An LLM system can fail without changing anything, it could just fail more or less randomly without any way to diagnose why it happened
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  No I'm talking about engineering a bridge for 50 cars that collapses at 51, not engineering a bridge for 500 cars that is only expected to get 50 Engineering does require tradeoffs of course. But that's not what the minimum possible quality is
closewith 1y ago
99% or more of software developers behave in ways that would be inconceivable in actual engineering. That's not to say there aren't software engineers, but most developers aren't engineers and aren't held to that standard.
- skydhash 1y ago
  Code is not physical. While computation errors can have real effects, a lot of orgs and people are resilient about them.
gond 1y ago
“Increasing Success by Lowering Expectations” That is from Despair Inc. This was obviously meant to be funny by them, now it looks like the state of play.

Aeolun 1y ago

> absolutely unacceptable to anyone calling themselves an Engineer Isn’t that exactly what engineers do? Even very strong bridges aren’t designed to survive every possible eventuality.

wrs 1y ago
That's what a "margin of error" is. The margin of error of a bridge is predictable thanks to well-established techniques of physical analysis. An LLM system, on the other hand, can fail because you moved some punctuation around.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  > An LLM system, on the other hand, can fail because you moved some punctuation around An LLM system can fail without changing anything, it could just fail more or less randomly without any way to diagnose why it happened
bluefirebrand 1y ago
No I'm talking about engineering a bridge for 50 cars that collapses at 51, not engineering a bridge for 500 cars that is only expected to get 50 Engineering does require tradeoffs of course. But that's not what the minimum possible quality is

closewith 1y ago

99% or more of software developers behave in ways that would be inconceivable in actual engineering. That's not to say there aren't software engineers, but most developers aren't engineers and aren't held to that standard.

skydhash 1y ago
Code is not physical. While computation errors can have real effects, a lot of orgs and people are resilient about them.

gond 1y ago

“Increasing Success by Lowering Expectations” That is from Despair Inc. This was obviously meant to be funny by them, now it looks like the state of play.