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I think a lot of the problem with the current discourse is how black-and-white it is. Either you're a luddite or "ai pilled". In most cases, LLMs can get you 8
by cafkafk 4mo ago
I think a lot of the problem with the current discourse is how black-and-white it is. Either you're a luddite or "ai pilled".
In most cases, LLMs can get you 80-95% of the way, sometimes less, sometimes more. And heck, sometimes, it just gets you somewhere wrong.
But it seems everyone is arguing about whether LLMs can be perfect software engineers in isolation running in a closet, and using that to say that LLMs do not have a massive potential in other scenarios.
Sometimes, I like to imagine how much more productive most organizations could be from the things that the internet gave us, even to this day. Most companies never really do even a fraction of what is possible. That helps to ground my view of LLMs as well.
The fault dear Brutus isn't in our language models, but in ourselves.
- bluegatty 4mo agoYes, exactly, it's 'us' not the AI, which is great. Why on earth would we ever remotely compare a 'tool' to 'a software engineer' ? The 'great delusion' is not that 'AI can't code' - because obviously it can, and very well. The problem is the 'anthropomorphism' and all this AGI nonsense. If we called it 'Stochastic Mechanisms' and did not 'personalize' our prompts, refer to them as 'chat' or give them 'personalities' but remained in the domain of 'Stochastic Language CLI' ... then our metaphors would pbably not cloud our judgments. Let the philosophers argue about AGI.
- esikich 4mo agoYou are a tool. You're a human resource, from the perspective of the organization. That pushes buttons on bunch of other tools. That's why you compare it. Edit: I don't mean tool as a perjoritive.
- jay_kyburz 4mo agoI don't know why you are getting downvoted. Perhaps because people don't like the sentiment. But its true, people are hired as tools to write programs. Both people and AI make mistakes. Perhaps the AI makes more, a lot more, but its so fast, and works around the clock, and has no ego, there is a chance that the benefits outweigh the costs.
- RagnarD 4mo agoI think the irony is that the perception of being called a tool as an insult, is exactly your meaning of it.
- bluegatty 4mo agoThere are innumerable other software and process technologies that we use - and never before have we compared them to 'Engineers'. The 'tool of the system' analogy is not an unreasonable point of discussion but it does not help us in this scenario.
- gizajob 4mo agoThe saner philosophers don’t need to argue about AGI because we’re absolutely nowhere near it.
- pixl97 4mo agoPlease give a well defined and agreed upon definition of AGI. For all I know you're the same guy that says we don't need to talk about nuclear weapons in 1937 because we're nowhere near them.
- easyThrowaway 4mo agoBecause the alternative would've been telling everyone "here's the Stochastic Machine. The more what you write looks like the sources we blatantly stol- I mean, trained from, the closer it gets to output working code". And we're not ready to admit we don't want to know how the sausage is made. By anthropomorphizing it, we give it some sort of authorship, which clears our collective conscience from what's really happening.
- tonyedgecombe 4mo ago>I think a lot of the problem with the current discourse is how black-and-white it is. There is too much money involved for any rational debate.
- ben_w 4mo agoOnly on the pro-AI side. The "it is bad" side is diverse on the reasons why, but being overwhelmed by bad content isn't a monetary concern.
- swiftcoder 4mo ago> There is too much money involved for any rational debate. For the Sam Altmans of this world, sure, but how much money is the average AI booster commenting on HN actually standing to make?
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoIf you are just invested in an index fund, a lot. If you are an HN commenter who is more likely invested heavily in tech stocks, much more than a lot. The other side is the stability of your job or job prospects, and we are adversely affected by that instead.
- swiftcoder 4mo ago> If you are an HN commenter who is more likely invested heavily in tech stocks, much more than a lot. The current state of the stock market is not exactly inspiring confidence about stability over the next few years. Number goes up over sufficient timescales, but if we get a Dotcom-level bust when AI investment slows, there may be a ways to climb back to current levels...
- swazzy 4mo agoI think that's geohot's point as well. They're advocating against being fully "ai pilled". Saying we should be using AI as a tool, not for being a luddite.
- overfeed 4mo ago> In most cases, LLMs can get you 80-95% of the way, sometimes less, sometimes more. That's my experience too, but it's 60-95% solutions in my case[1], with about 120-140% of lines of code required. I wish there was a harness that would let me mask code it should/n't change, because prompt-based refactors fail from the same over-eagerness. 1. I try faster, smaller models first.
- brabel 4mo agoWe had the same issue until we created a review skill that we run after a LLM is done implementing a feature. We give it a list of things to check that is based on the problems we have observed previously, like writing too verbose code, and ask it to report on issues and suggest improvements. The developer can then give feedback and let the LLM fix the issues, or just address them manually. It’s still early but I’ve been much happier now with the results. It makes it much easier as well for humans to review since there’s a report about what the change is about, why, things to keep an eye on etc. This is something you can do with any harness you may be using and there’s nothing to buy, just a suggestion from someone trying to make the best use of this insane technology.
- soperj 4mo agoIt's funny, but the more I know about the true Luddites, the more I see their point of view. " the original Luddites were primarily protesting against machinery used to "fraudulently and deceitfully" manufacture inferior goods, bypass labor standards, and strip skilled artisans of their livelihoods."
- seanmcdirmid 4mo agoAnd yet, clothes would have remained very expensive if we kept doing fabric by hand. Even destitute people in the poorest countries can have clothes these days, the meaning of “who wears the pants in this house” has lost its original (一条裤子) scarcity meaning.
- card_zero 4mo agoDoesn't that just say "a pair of pants"? Or literally one line pants.
- thaumasiotes 4mo ago条 is the appropriate measure word for pants; they're plural in English, but uncountable (like other nouns) in Chinese. You could translate it as "a pair of pants", and that's the appropriate way to put it in English, but really it says "one pants".
- card_zero 4mo agoI guess the measure word works equivalently to a unit of measurement, then. One bottle of beer, one sack of sugar, one 条 of pant.
- thaumasiotes 4mo agoCorrect. In Chinese all nouns require them. (It's not the case, however, that all measure words require nouns. 天 ("day") and 年 ("year") are measure words that are almost always used on their own. There might be an implicit notion of "one day of time" or similar.)
- kcguyu 4mo agoI completely agree with your sentiment of “black or white.” I believe it comes from social media with primarily “radical” perspectives being the ones in the spotlight. Just not an environment that promotes nuance or friendly discussion
- joe_the_user 4mo agoLLMs can get you 80-95% of the way But the big question is "where will '80-95% of the way' get you?" Do you grind-out the last 5-20% in a period that's disappointingly long compared to the initial step? Or do you another 80% complete thing on top, and another and another until the whole structure collapses? The post is talking about what groups might go what directions, which seems fair.
- hansmayer 4mo ago> But it seems everyone is arguing about whether LLMs can be perfect software engineers That's just those of us with longer memory holding the AI companies to the standards they declared themselves. Nobody forced Sam Altman to blab about a team of pocket PhDs, did they? I don't want the crap that does it correct 60℅ of the time - where is the god damn nation of PhDs in a datacemter already? Where is the AI doing all the SWE work "in 3-6 months"?
- pickleRick243 4mo agoYou want the AI that's doing all the SWE work in 3-6 months? Somehow I doubt that.
- hansmayer 4mo agoNo buddy, not me. Dario Amodei however, keeps announcing it every about 6 months, on the dot. Last time i January this year. So I just want them held acccountable to their own statements. Otherwise if they would be untrue, that is at best incompetence, and at worst investor fraud. Both should draw serious consequences, given the ungodly sums which are burnt into these pipe dreams.
- roncesvalles 4mo ago>In most cases, LLMs can get you 80-95% of the way On a tangent, this often gets misinterpreted as "LLMs reduce the time it takes to do the thing by 80-95%". That's not what it means.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4mo agoThe article specifically calls out agents: > the adoption of AI agents into software development will be one of the most costly mistakes in the field’s history I don’t use agents, myself. I use a simple chat interface, and a running dialogue, to build software at a function-building level. The resulting workflow is quite “chimerical,” and benefits greatly from my own experience and expertise. The LLM simply lubricates the process. In my case, it seems to be working well. I would not want to go back.
- ModernMech 4mo agoI agree with this. I've tried using agents over the last 2 months, and I feel they are just... bad. I spend more time trying to correct their inexplicable decisions than it takes to just go through step by step in a dialogue.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4mo ago"Either you're a luddite or "ai pilled"." The Luddites were (violent) activists. They were more than just "non-believers" Generally, those being labeled "Luddites" in today's "discourse" are people who dare to question the "AI" hype. GGenerally, these people are not activists
- satvikpendem 4mo agoSemantic weakening is common in all languages, just as literally doesn't literally mean literally.