It's clear that AI assisted coding is dividing developers (welcome to the culture wars!).
-
@hanshuebner @can @plexus Actually, you are doing great putting my exact feelings into words. Thanks for that!
-
@matt @dalias You are absolutely right, but here's the thing: Code review also does not prevent subtle bugs from creeping into the code base when humans wrote the code. Review is just one of the tools that ensure software quality.
This is to say that code written by LLMs and humans suffer from similar issues, require similar care and review and can fail in similar ways. There is more LLM code, though, and there are new challenges because scaling with LLMs works differently than with humans.
@hanshuebner @dalias Isn't it obvious, though, that the risks are higher when you have an LLM generate code statistically from a natural-language prompt, as opposed to writing the code and paying attention to every detail yourself?
-
@hanshuebner @dalias Isn't it obvious, though, that the risks are higher when you have an LLM generate code statistically from a natural-language prompt, as opposed to writing the code and paying attention to every detail yourself?
@matt @dalias Statistically, you will have more bugs because you have more software. But also, you can easily create tests, refactor and make executable requirements.
Making good software with LLM support is hard work and takes time. If you look at the stuff that people make with three prompts and then post to LinkedIn, you know what I mean.
A good program requires attention to detail, no matter what the tool does for you.
-
@hanshuebner @flooper @plexus And if your view of the world begins and ends with making money, as I admit is capitalist dogma, fair enough.
But producing code with LLMs - or using them for anything which needs to be correct - is deception (whether you're deceiving yourself or others) on a massive scale, on a par with crypto, Ponzi schemes, climate denial, etc.
(1/2)
-
@matt @dalias Statistically, you will have more bugs because you have more software. But also, you can easily create tests, refactor and make executable requirements.
Making good software with LLM support is hard work and takes time. If you look at the stuff that people make with three prompts and then post to LinkedIn, you know what I mean.
A good program requires attention to detail, no matter what the tool does for you.
@hanshuebner @dalias So then why do it with an LLM as opposed to the hard work of writing the code directly? Is it just to appease capital's irrational demands?
-
@hanshuebner @dalias So then why do it with an LLM as opposed to the hard work of writing the code directly? Is it just to appease capital's irrational demands?
-
@hanshuebner @flooper @plexus And if your view of the world begins and ends with making money, as I admit is capitalist dogma, fair enough.
But producing code with LLMs - or using them for anything which needs to be correct - is deception (whether you're deceiving yourself or others) on a massive scale, on a par with crypto, Ponzi schemes, climate denial, etc.
(1/2)
-
@hanshuebner @flooper @plexus And if your view of the world begins and ends with making money, as I admit is capitalist dogma, fair enough.
But producing code with LLMs - or using them for anything which needs to be correct - is deception (whether you're deceiving yourself or others) on a massive scale, on a par with crypto, Ponzi schemes, climate denial, etc.
(1/2)
Anthropomorphizing them (as many do, but I don't think you are) is a flawed view, but does provide one useful insight.
If one treats an LLM as a person, then the fundamental issue is:
They are a bullshit artist with a huge library. They do not have competence at anything except bullshitting, at which they are superb.
I agree that it's amazing that we can build a mechanical bullshit generator that's good enough to bypass most people's defenses.
-
It's clear that AI assisted coding is dividing developers (welcome to the culture wars!). I've seen a few blog posts now that talk about how some people just "love the craft", "delight in making something just right, like knitting", etc, as opposed to people who just "want to make it work". As if that explains the divide.
How about this, some people resent the notion of being a babysitter to a stochastic token machine, hastening their own cognitive decline. Some people resent paying rent to a handful of US companies, all coming directly out of the TESCREAL human extinction cult, to be able to write software. Some people resent the "worse is better" steady decline of software quality over the past two decades, now supercharged. Some people resent that the hegemonic computing ecosystem is entirely shaped by the logic of venture capital. Some people hate that the digital commons is walled off and sold back to us. Oh and I guess some people also don't like the thought of making coding several orders of magnitude more energy intensive during a climate emergency.
But sure, no, it's really because we mourn the loss of our hobby.
@plexus Because AI did not create a programming language, because AI did not create a compiler, because AI did not create a linker, AI can not create software.
-
@hanshuebner @dalias But then you have to spend time putting guardrails in place (e.g. comprehensive tests) to make sure the LLM doesn't do something wrong; using an LLM is rolling the dice, after all. Now, if you believe that one should always put maximal guardrails in place anyway even for human-written code, then I suppose the faster code generation could still be a net gain. But I'm not sure there's one correct answer to how much one should invest in guardrails (tests, types, lints, etc.).
-
@hanshuebner @flooper @plexus I work for a living and try to avoid dishonesty while doing so.
Since I understand that LLMs are fundamentally and inherently dishonest, that doesn't leave much wiggle room for me.
-
B bogwitch@social.data.coop shared this topic
