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I have 15 years of software engineering experience across some top companies. I truly believe that ai will far surpass human beings at coding, and more broadly

I have 15 years of software engineering experience across some top companies. I truly believe that ai will far surpass human beings at coding, and more broadly logic work. We are very close

daxfohl 9mo ago
They already do. What they suck at is common sense. Unfortunately good software requires both.
- marktl 9mo ago
  Or is it fortunate (for a short period at least).
- anonzzzies 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - 523-asf1 9mo ago
    Even a 20 year old Markov chain could produce this banality.
anonzzzies 9mo ago
HN will be the last place to admit it; people here seem to be holding out with the vague 'I tried it and it came up with crap'. While many of us are shipping software without touching (much) code anymore. I have written code for over 40 years and this is nothing like no-code or whatever 'replacing programmers' before, this is clearly different judging from the people who cannot code with a gun to their heads but still are shipping apps: it does not really matter if anyone believes me or not. I am making more money than ever with fewer people than ever delivering more than ever. We are very close. (by the way; I like writing code and I still do for fun)
- fc417fc802 9mo ago
  > holding out with the vague 'I tried it and it came up with crap' Isn't that a perfectly reasonable metric? The topic has been dominated by hype for at least the past 5 if not 10 years. So when you encounter the latest in a long line of "the future is here the sky is falling" claims, where every past claim to date has been wrong, it's natural to try for yourself, observe a poor result, and report back "nope, just more BS as usual". If the hyped future does ever arrive then anyone trying for themselves will get a workable result. It will be trivially easy to demonstrate that naysayers are full of shit. That does not currently appear to be the case.
  - danielbln 9mo ago
    What topic are you referring to? ChatGPT release was just over 3 years ago. 5 years ago we had basic non-instruct GPT-3.
    - fc417fc802 9mo ago
      Wasn't transformer 2017? There's been constant AI hype since at least that far back and it's only gotten worse. If I release a claim once a month that armageddon will happen next month, and then after 20 years it finally does, are all of my past claims vindicated? Or was I spewing nonsense the entire time? What if my claim was the next big pandemic? The next 9.0 earthquake?
      - danielbln 9mo ago
        Transformers was 2017 and it had some implications on translation (which were in no way overstated), but it took GPT-2 and 3 to kick it off in earnest and the real hype machine started with ChatGPT. What you are doing however is dismissing the outrageous progress on NLP and by extension code generation of the last few years just because people over hype it. People over hyped the Internet in the early 2000s, yet here we are.
        fc417fc802 9mo ago
user3939382 9mo ago
They can only code to specification which is where even teams of humans get lost. Without much smarter architecture for AI (LLMs as is are a joke) that needle isn’t going to move.
- danielbln 9mo ago
  Real HN comment right here. "LLMs are a joke" - maybe don't drink the anti-hype kool aid, you'll blind yourself to the capability space that's out there, even if it's not AGI or whatever.
  - user3939382 9mo ago
    I’ll look past the disrespectful flippant insult on the hope that there’s a brain there too. They’re a probabalistic phonograph. They can sharpen the funnel for input but they can’t provide judgement on input or resolve ambiguities in your specifications. Teams of human requirements engineers cannot do it. LLMs are not magic. You’re essentially asking it; from my wardrobe pick an outfit for me and make sure it’s the one I would have picked. If you’re dazzled into thinking LLMs can solve this you just don’t understand transformer architecture and you don’t understand requirements engineering. You’ll know a proper AI engine when you see it and it doesn’t look like an LLM.
    - int_19h 9mo ago
      Humans aren't magic either. LLMs don't need to be magic to be useful, or to replace humans for that matter.
      - user3939382 9mo ago
        Humans are magic from the LLMs perspective because the token window sizes they would need to approach human experiential disambiguation of requirements would be orders of magnitude larger. Useful in general or replace in general some human activities is a goal post shift that was never the discussion here.
523-asf1 9mo ago
Gotta make sure that the investors read this message in an Erdos thread.
AtlasBarfed 9mo ago
Is this comment written by AI?
sekai 9mo ago
> I have 15 years of software engineering experience across some top companies. I truly believe that ai will far surpass human beings at coding, and more broadly logic work. We are very close Coding was never the hard part of software development.
- pelorat 9mo ago
  Getting the architecture mostly right, so it's easy to maintain and modify in the future is IMO hard part, but I find that this is where AI shines. I have 20 years of SWE experience (professional) and (10 hobby) and most of my AI use is for architecture and scaffolding first, code second.

I have 15 years of software engineering experience across some top companies. I truly believe that ai will far surpass human beings at coding, and more broadly logic work. We are very close

daxfohl 9mo ago

They already do. What they suck at is common sense. Unfortunately good software requires both.

marktl 9mo ago
Or is it fortunate (for a short period at least).
anonzzzies 9mo ago
[flagged]
- 523-asf1 9mo ago
  Even a 20 year old Markov chain could produce this banality.

anonzzzies 9mo ago

HN will be the last place to admit it; people here seem to be holding out with the vague 'I tried it and it came up with crap'. While many of us are shipping software without touching (much) code anymore. I have written code for over 40 years and this is nothing like no-code or whatever 'replacing programmers' before, this is clearly different judging from the people who cannot code with a gun to their heads but still are shipping apps: it does not really matter if anyone believes me or not. I am making more money than ever with fewer people than ever delivering more than ever. We are very close. (by the way; I like writing code and I still do for fun)

fc417fc802 9mo ago
> holding out with the vague 'I tried it and it came up with crap' Isn't that a perfectly reasonable metric? The topic has been dominated by hype for at least the past 5 if not 10 years. So when you encounter the latest in a long line of "the future is here the sky is falling" claims, where every past claim to date has been wrong, it's natural to try for yourself, observe a poor result, and report back "nope, just more BS as usual". If the hyped future does ever arrive then anyone trying for themselves will get a workable result. It will be trivially easy to demonstrate that naysayers are full of shit. That does not currently appear to be the case.
- danielbln 9mo ago
  What topic are you referring to? ChatGPT release was just over 3 years ago. 5 years ago we had basic non-instruct GPT-3.
  - fc417fc802 9mo ago
    Wasn't transformer 2017? There's been constant AI hype since at least that far back and it's only gotten worse. If I release a claim once a month that armageddon will happen next month, and then after 20 years it finally does, are all of my past claims vindicated? Or was I spewing nonsense the entire time? What if my claim was the next big pandemic? The next 9.0 earthquake?
    - danielbln 9mo ago
      Transformers was 2017 and it had some implications on translation (which were in no way overstated), but it took GPT-2 and 3 to kick it off in earnest and the real hype machine started with ChatGPT. What you are doing however is dismissing the outrageous progress on NLP and by extension code generation of the last few years just because people over hype it. People over hyped the Internet in the early 2000s, yet here we are.
      - fc417fc802 9mo ago

user3939382 9mo ago

They can only code to specification which is where even teams of humans get lost. Without much smarter architecture for AI (LLMs as is are a joke) that needle isn’t going to move.

danielbln 9mo ago
Real HN comment right here. "LLMs are a joke" - maybe don't drink the anti-hype kool aid, you'll blind yourself to the capability space that's out there, even if it's not AGI or whatever.
- user3939382 9mo ago
  I’ll look past the disrespectful flippant insult on the hope that there’s a brain there too. They’re a probabalistic phonograph. They can sharpen the funnel for input but they can’t provide judgement on input or resolve ambiguities in your specifications. Teams of human requirements engineers cannot do it. LLMs are not magic. You’re essentially asking it; from my wardrobe pick an outfit for me and make sure it’s the one I would have picked. If you’re dazzled into thinking LLMs can solve this you just don’t understand transformer architecture and you don’t understand requirements engineering. You’ll know a proper AI engine when you see it and it doesn’t look like an LLM.
  - int_19h 9mo ago
    Humans aren't magic either. LLMs don't need to be magic to be useful, or to replace humans for that matter.
    - user3939382 9mo ago
      Humans are magic from the LLMs perspective because the token window sizes they would need to approach human experiential disambiguation of requirements would be orders of magnitude larger. Useful in general or replace in general some human activities is a goal post shift that was never the discussion here.

523-asf1 9mo ago

Gotta make sure that the investors read this message in an Erdos thread.

AtlasBarfed 9mo ago

Is this comment written by AI?

sekai 9mo ago

> I have 15 years of software engineering experience across some top companies. I truly believe that ai will far surpass human beings at coding, and more broadly logic work. We are very close Coding was never the hard part of software development.

pelorat 9mo ago
Getting the architecture mostly right, so it's easy to maintain and modify in the future is IMO hard part, but I find that this is where AI shines. I have 20 years of SWE experience (professional) and (10 hobby) and most of my AI use is for architecture and scaffolding first, code second.