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I think the big assumption that this article hinges on is that AI will never create durable code. That cannot be true. Now that we’ve finally got a taste of the

by mfro 1y ago

I think the big assumption that this article hinges on is that AI will never create durable code. That cannot be true. Now that we’ve finally got a taste of the singularity, humans will never stop trying to bring about AGI, which by definition must write code that is exponentially more durable than anything a human could write. The question is ‘when’.

JackSlateur 1y ago
Just because you dream of something does not mean it will come true Never stop trying != succeed
- CharlesW 1y ago
  https://github.com/cloudflare/workers-oauth-provider https://github.com/cloudflare/workers-oauth-provider This library (including the schema documentation) was largely written with the help of Claude, the AI model by Anthropic. Claude's output was thoroughly reviewed by Cloudflare engineers with careful attention paid to security and compliance with standards. Many improvements were made on the initial output, mostly again by prompting Claude (and reviewing the results). Check out the commit history to see how Claude was prompted and what code it produced. "NOOOOOOOO!!!! You can't just use an LLM to write an auth library!" "haha gpus go brrr" In all seriousness, two months ago (January 2025), I (@kentonv) would have agreed. I was an AI skeptic. I thought LLMs were glorified Markov chain generators that didn't actually understand code and couldn't produce anything novel. I started this project on a lark, fully expecting the AI to produce terrible code for me to laugh at. And then, uh... the code actually looked pretty good. Not perfect, but I just told the AI to fix things, and it did. I was shocked. To emphasize, this is not "vibe coded". Every line was thoroughly reviewed and cross-referenced with relevant RFCs, by security experts with previous experience with those RFCs. I was trying to validate my skepticism. I ended up proving myself wrong. Again, please check out the commit history -- especially early commits -- to understand how this went.
  - dingnuts 1y ago
    > TO EMPHASIZE THIS WAS NOT VIBE CODED an expert using high powered autocomplete to successfully take a shortcut towards a well defined problem is not evidence of "AGI" or "the singularity" belief in "the singularity" is a religious belief. you people sound like evangelicals talking about the goddamned rapture
    - CharlesW 1y ago
      Sorry, yes, talk of “AGI” or “the singularity” is silly and I should’ve distanced myself from that bit of the post. But the use of AI to write durable code is happening now, like it or not.
      - Waraqa 1y ago
        It can only be categorized as durable after careful revision from human experts and extensive testing. This is what the article is about.
    - PicassoCTs 1y ago
      [dead]
  - JackSlateur 1y ago
    See the many comments on HN about this It took an expert and a whole team of software engineer to code "with IA" something well defined, well known, and with already lots of implementation in other languages Glorious indeed, we have created a new kind of printer ! (irony inside) (in conclusion, the above post from cloudflare is an ad)
- 1shooner 1y ago
  See also centuries of chrysopoeia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopoeia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopoeia. To be fair, they did synthesize gold in 1984, "although the production cost is estimated to be a trillion times the market price of gold."
- PicassoCTs 1y ago
  [dead]
Scarblac 1y ago
The question remains, 'can it be done'.
lm28469 1y ago
> The question is ‘when’. Why ? In the 60s we thought we'd be living on the moon and mars "soon", flying cars were talked about seriously, that faster than sound jetliners were just around the corner, &c. Sometimes what's possible isn't desirable, or what's desirable isn't possible. No one went back on the moon, space programs are basically dead, planes are still as slow as they were in the 50s, a 747-8 from 2008 isn't much faster than a 707 from 1956
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
  There was the Concorde, for some time. There may be newer, smaller ones, doing Mach 1.5 to 1.8, while being more silent. Flying cars? Aren't the prototypical electrical air-taxis that, in a way? Space programs? By whom? Do SpaceX and other commercial entities inspired by them not count? What about https://www.astroforge.com https://www.astroforge.com or similar? edit: https://abovespace.com https://abovespace.com , https://www.vastspace.com https://www.vastspace.com , https://www.axiomspace.com/axiom-station https://www.axiomspace.com/axiom-station , https://www.blueorigin.com/destinations https://www.blueorigin.com/destinations Less likely, but still: https://gatewayspaceport.com/the-gateway/ https://gatewayspaceport.com/the-gateway/ Finally, regarding space programs in the classical sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station and its planned companion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuntian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuntian Is the mention of chinese stuff taboo, because NIH!1!! DAMMIT! YELLOW PERIL!1!! ?
conartist6 1y ago
You've wandered away from logic into the realm of wildest fallacy. Your proof about AGI is just a repurposed proof of the existence of a supreme deity! In other words your argument is, "AGI will be the literal most amazing thing in the universe because that's what I define the word AGI to mean." No implementation of AGI could ever satisfy your absurdist threshold because what you want already exists. Code more durable than any written by humans is called DNA. Which DNA and which code persist throughout history is the subject of romances and wars, in other words the stuff of life and death. Only by being wilfully blind to literally everything in the world could you be so ignorant as to believe that you've found some great blank empty slate where nothing yet exists. Sorry, but this space is inhabited already.

by mfro 1y ago

JackSlateur 1y ago

Just because you dream of something does not mean it will come true Never stop trying != succeed

CharlesW 1y ago
https://github.com/cloudflare/workers-oauth-provider https://github.com/cloudflare/workers-oauth-provider This library (including the schema documentation) was largely written with the help of Claude, the AI model by Anthropic. Claude's output was thoroughly reviewed by Cloudflare engineers with careful attention paid to security and compliance with standards. Many improvements were made on the initial output, mostly again by prompting Claude (and reviewing the results). Check out the commit history to see how Claude was prompted and what code it produced. "NOOOOOOOO!!!! You can't just use an LLM to write an auth library!" "haha gpus go brrr" In all seriousness, two months ago (January 2025), I (@kentonv) would have agreed. I was an AI skeptic. I thought LLMs were glorified Markov chain generators that didn't actually understand code and couldn't produce anything novel. I started this project on a lark, fully expecting the AI to produce terrible code for me to laugh at. And then, uh... the code actually looked pretty good. Not perfect, but I just told the AI to fix things, and it did. I was shocked. To emphasize, this is not "vibe coded". Every line was thoroughly reviewed and cross-referenced with relevant RFCs, by security experts with previous experience with those RFCs. I was trying to validate my skepticism. I ended up proving myself wrong. Again, please check out the commit history -- especially early commits -- to understand how this went.
- dingnuts 1y ago
  > TO EMPHASIZE THIS WAS NOT VIBE CODED an expert using high powered autocomplete to successfully take a shortcut towards a well defined problem is not evidence of "AGI" or "the singularity" belief in "the singularity" is a religious belief. you people sound like evangelicals talking about the goddamned rapture
  - CharlesW 1y ago
    Sorry, yes, talk of “AGI” or “the singularity” is silly and I should’ve distanced myself from that bit of the post. But the use of AI to write durable code is happening now, like it or not.
    - Waraqa 1y ago
      It can only be categorized as durable after careful revision from human experts and extensive testing. This is what the article is about.
  - PicassoCTs 1y ago
    [dead]
- JackSlateur 1y ago
  See the many comments on HN about this It took an expert and a whole team of software engineer to code "with IA" something well defined, well known, and with already lots of implementation in other languages Glorious indeed, we have created a new kind of printer ! (irony inside) (in conclusion, the above post from cloudflare is an ad)
1shooner 1y ago
See also centuries of chrysopoeia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopoeia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopoeia. To be fair, they did synthesize gold in 1984, "although the production cost is estimated to be a trillion times the market price of gold."
PicassoCTs 1y ago
[dead]

Scarblac 1y ago

The question remains, 'can it be done'.

lm28469 1y ago

> The question is ‘when’. Why ? In the 60s we thought we'd be living on the moon and mars "soon", flying cars were talked about seriously, that faster than sound jetliners were just around the corner, &c. Sometimes what's possible isn't desirable, or what's desirable isn't possible. No one went back on the moon, space programs are basically dead, planes are still as slow as they were in the 50s, a 747-8 from 2008 isn't much faster than a 707 from 1956

LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
There was the Concorde, for some time. There may be newer, smaller ones, doing Mach 1.5 to 1.8, while being more silent. Flying cars? Aren't the prototypical electrical air-taxis that, in a way? Space programs? By whom? Do SpaceX and other commercial entities inspired by them not count? What about https://www.astroforge.com https://www.astroforge.com or similar? edit: https://abovespace.com https://abovespace.com , https://www.vastspace.com https://www.vastspace.com , https://www.axiomspace.com/axiom-station https://www.axiomspace.com/axiom-station , https://www.blueorigin.com/destinations https://www.blueorigin.com/destinations Less likely, but still: https://gatewayspaceport.com/the-gateway/ https://gatewayspaceport.com/the-gateway/ Finally, regarding space programs in the classical sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station and its planned companion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuntian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuntian Is the mention of chinese stuff taboo, because NIH!1!! DAMMIT! YELLOW PERIL!1!! ?

conartist6 1y ago

You've wandered away from logic into the realm of wildest fallacy. Your proof about AGI is just a repurposed proof of the existence of a supreme deity! In other words your argument is, "AGI will be the literal most amazing thing in the universe because that's what I define the word AGI to mean." No implementation of AGI could ever satisfy your absurdist threshold because what you want already exists. Code more durable than any written by humans is called DNA. Which DNA and which code persist throughout history is the subject of romances and wars, in other words the stuff of life and death. Only by being wilfully blind to literally everything in the world could you be so ignorant as to believe that you've found some great blank empty slate where nothing yet exists. Sorry, but this space is inhabited already.