6 ms·

Glib is called for. The amount of information asymmetry that's still on the table as vibe coders and vibe engineers and vibe doctors emerge is staggering. Profe

Glib is called for. The amount of information asymmetry that's still on the table as vibe coders and vibe engineers and vibe doctors emerge is staggering. Professional experience is still incredibly valuable. Most software developers might spend more than 6% of their time coding but no senior developers are banging their heads for hours over typos. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xBilK3gT5e0 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xBilK3gT5e0

pear01 5mo ago
This is temporary. What is the SKILL.md equivalent going to be in five years? In ten? You don't already see a pattern emerging around solutions to encode that "professional experience" into the tools themselves? These LLMs can already incorporate our entire cultural corpus yet your "professional experience" is the threshold they won't cross?
- ecocentrik 5mo ago
  The capacity of the person prompting it to understand is the threshold they won't cross. They can squeeze the gap as much as possible by dumbing down answers or slowly ramping up information complexity but there is a limit to comprehension.
  - pear01 5mo ago
    This is an interesting answer for questions about human agency and accountability/personhood questions but I don't see how it leads to increased confidence in the role of human as SWE. If LLMs get good enough, one might be tempted to ask so what if most humans can't understand the output? Human civilization has by and large been a constant exercise in us collectively accomplishing more and more while individually comprehending less and less. Our ancestors likely understood more about hunting live game or murdering each other than we do. Most of us do not consider that a great loss. Most of us living in the modern world depend on things we don't fully comprehend. I'm just not sure how this would lead to being reassured re the human as SWE.
    - npodbielski 5mo ago
      Do you really want to live in a world when nobody understand software that manages nuclear power plant? Or medical devices? Or financial software? Or radio transceivers firmware? Even something so boring like databases not understood could lead to disastrous effects if this would be the government database for managing people IDS. Hmm even if this would be working fine for years what would happen if bad actor would influence models to generate code if security issues? If nobody can comprehend the output how anybody would be able to think about the danger? This is even more grim then this https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic
      - pear01 5mo ago
        We live in a world with nuclear weapons. Somehow we all cope and get up every morning. I think you are missing the point - the world is already grim. It always has been. What about human affairs say in the last century alone makes you think human oversight is some panacea? The impetus for civilization was not some innate desire for financial systems or medicine. It was not having other humans murder you. The Leviathan is already here. The article you shared has little to do with this. Questions of how to divide up gains technology creates are a separate question from that of the technology itself. Tbh I found what you shared so boring I could barely finish it. I already in this thread made an exhortation to support politicans who commit to erasing inequality. The idea that LLMs can only exist with inequality is nonsensical. The only thing grim about what you shared is the lack of political imagination. It's boring.
        jimbokun 5mo ago
        At least we have people who understand the technology underlying nuclear weapons!
      - esafak 5mo ago
        Maybe the tables will turn and people will ask, do you really want to live in a world where things aren't designed by machines (smarter than us)?
    - 5mo ago
- datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
  The word “incorporate” is doing some very heavy lifting in your assertion. These LLMs already have access to the whole corpus of architectural knowledge and software best practices, and yet they’re unable to reliably implement those best practices. Why not? Why do they often make completely unintuitive decisions, even when repeatedly prompted to ask clarifying questions?
  - pear01 5mo ago
    To be clear by that and "cultural corpus" I meant their skill with natural languages. It is well known for instance that early LLMs were curiously better at composing sentences in English than doing basic math. Regarding such formal reasoning we have already seen marked improvement in the last year or two alone. The question is how this weighs on your prediction re their capabilities in the next two, five, ten, etc years.
    - datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
      What are the properties of LLMs that have convinced you that there remains emergent complexity (e.g. the “ability” to formally reason) that we have not yet seen?
      - pear01 5mo ago
        There may be gains to be had in such emergence but that is not where I see the gains in the next five years. Those gains will be made by connecting LLMs more robustly with formal reasoning, which computers are already very good at. Continued iteration on connecting these right/left brain faculties could then lead to further emergence down the line. The present notions of harnesses, structured output or looping in the LLM to some external state or sandbox be it debugger output or embedding into a runtime already show early promising results along these lines. I see no reason to believe these gains will not continue over the next five years. If you have some theories in the converse in that regard I am all ears.
        datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
roncesvalles 5mo ago
These days nobody bangs their heads over typos. LLMs evaporated 90% of the "moments of despair" when you have an error and googling it isn't helping, or googling it made you realize you have to read 30min of documentation. Coding is a joy now. LLMs shaved off all the rough edges.
- ecocentrik 5mo ago
  Languages have been reporting compile and runtime errors for decades. Additionally very few senior developers don't already have their minds wired to spot typos the way copy editors spot bad punctuation. Typos were only really a problem for students.
  - neutronicus 5mo ago
    I've been writing C++ for almost 20 years at this point and I do still benefit from how good Claude is at gnarly Template error messages.
- skeeter2020 5mo ago
  You can't possibly believe this, or you and me (and many others) are doing something different. LLMs have created an entire new - huge - set of bang-your-head moments, as they go off half-cocked in a million simultaneous directions, chasing their tail, or just making shit up. And since the vast majority of work is on existing - often ancient - codebases, let's find out if you feel the same way in 18 months.
  - GolfPopper 5mo ago
    LLMs are great for anyone who isn't responsible for the consequences of what they code.
  - jimbokun 5mo ago
    Give them work in smaller chunks.
  - lo_zamoyski 5mo ago

pear01 5mo ago

This is temporary. What is the SKILL.md equivalent going to be in five years? In ten? You don't already see a pattern emerging around solutions to encode that "professional experience" into the tools themselves? These LLMs can already incorporate our entire cultural corpus yet your "professional experience" is the threshold they won't cross?

ecocentrik 5mo ago
The capacity of the person prompting it to understand is the threshold they won't cross. They can squeeze the gap as much as possible by dumbing down answers or slowly ramping up information complexity but there is a limit to comprehension.
- pear01 5mo ago
  This is an interesting answer for questions about human agency and accountability/personhood questions but I don't see how it leads to increased confidence in the role of human as SWE. If LLMs get good enough, one might be tempted to ask so what if most humans can't understand the output? Human civilization has by and large been a constant exercise in us collectively accomplishing more and more while individually comprehending less and less. Our ancestors likely understood more about hunting live game or murdering each other than we do. Most of us do not consider that a great loss. Most of us living in the modern world depend on things we don't fully comprehend. I'm just not sure how this would lead to being reassured re the human as SWE.
  - npodbielski 5mo ago
    Do you really want to live in a world when nobody understand software that manages nuclear power plant? Or medical devices? Or financial software? Or radio transceivers firmware? Even something so boring like databases not understood could lead to disastrous effects if this would be the government database for managing people IDS. Hmm even if this would be working fine for years what would happen if bad actor would influence models to generate code if security issues? If nobody can comprehend the output how anybody would be able to think about the danger? This is even more grim then this https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic https://www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic
    - pear01 5mo ago
      We live in a world with nuclear weapons. Somehow we all cope and get up every morning. I think you are missing the point - the world is already grim. It always has been. What about human affairs say in the last century alone makes you think human oversight is some panacea? The impetus for civilization was not some innate desire for financial systems or medicine. It was not having other humans murder you. The Leviathan is already here. The article you shared has little to do with this. Questions of how to divide up gains technology creates are a separate question from that of the technology itself. Tbh I found what you shared so boring I could barely finish it. I already in this thread made an exhortation to support politicans who commit to erasing inequality. The idea that LLMs can only exist with inequality is nonsensical. The only thing grim about what you shared is the lack of political imagination. It's boring.
      - jimbokun 5mo ago
        At least we have people who understand the technology underlying nuclear weapons!
    - esafak 5mo ago
      Maybe the tables will turn and people will ask, do you really want to live in a world where things aren't designed by machines (smarter than us)?
  - 5mo ago
datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
The word “incorporate” is doing some very heavy lifting in your assertion. These LLMs already have access to the whole corpus of architectural knowledge and software best practices, and yet they’re unable to reliably implement those best practices. Why not? Why do they often make completely unintuitive decisions, even when repeatedly prompted to ask clarifying questions?
- pear01 5mo ago
  To be clear by that and "cultural corpus" I meant their skill with natural languages. It is well known for instance that early LLMs were curiously better at composing sentences in English than doing basic math. Regarding such formal reasoning we have already seen marked improvement in the last year or two alone. The question is how this weighs on your prediction re their capabilities in the next two, five, ten, etc years.
  - datsci_est_2015 5mo ago
    What are the properties of LLMs that have convinced you that there remains emergent complexity (e.g. the “ability” to formally reason) that we have not yet seen?
    - pear01 5mo ago
      There may be gains to be had in such emergence but that is not where I see the gains in the next five years. Those gains will be made by connecting LLMs more robustly with formal reasoning, which computers are already very good at. Continued iteration on connecting these right/left brain faculties could then lead to further emergence down the line. The present notions of harnesses, structured output or looping in the LLM to some external state or sandbox be it debugger output or embedding into a runtime already show early promising results along these lines. I see no reason to believe these gains will not continue over the next five years. If you have some theories in the converse in that regard I am all ears.
      - datsci_est_2015 5mo ago

roncesvalles 5mo ago

These days nobody bangs their heads over typos. LLMs evaporated 90% of the "moments of despair" when you have an error and googling it isn't helping, or googling it made you realize you have to read 30min of documentation. Coding is a joy now. LLMs shaved off all the rough edges.

ecocentrik 5mo ago
Languages have been reporting compile and runtime errors for decades. Additionally very few senior developers don't already have their minds wired to spot typos the way copy editors spot bad punctuation. Typos were only really a problem for students.
- neutronicus 5mo ago
  I've been writing C++ for almost 20 years at this point and I do still benefit from how good Claude is at gnarly Template error messages.
skeeter2020 5mo ago
You can't possibly believe this, or you and me (and many others) are doing something different. LLMs have created an entire new - huge - set of bang-your-head moments, as they go off half-cocked in a million simultaneous directions, chasing their tail, or just making shit up. And since the vast majority of work is on existing - often ancient - codebases, let's find out if you feel the same way in 18 months.
- GolfPopper 5mo ago
  LLMs are great for anyone who isn't responsible for the consequences of what they code.
- jimbokun 5mo ago
  Give them work in smaller chunks.
- lo_zamoyski 5mo ago