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What even is an OS now?

310 points · 479 comments · fratellobigio

  1. Xirdus · · focus · HN ↗
    In my opinion, this post misses the forest for the trees. Yes, the model of an OS running various off-the-shelf apps for various tasks will soon become obsolete. But it's not the idea of the OS that's outdated - it's the idea of apps. Why would you ever want to ask an AI to make an app for you to complete some task, if you can instead ask the AI to complete the task directly? The future isn't a bunch of extremely personalized apps - the future is a single AI assistant doing all the work.
    1. juggler45334 · · focus · HN ↗
      There is a big misconception in your answer in that you seem to believe that an LLM would always produce (machine) code that does what the user intended, in a correct and safe manner. Neither of these assumptions is true. If you knew how LLMs are built and operate, you would know they are not reliable at all. What you might ask from an AI interpreter OS might be unique and thus might be absent from its training set and might not follow a pattern inferred from its training set either.

      LLMs are the first machine learning models that blatantly and regularly produce incorrect output and we have been brainwashed into accepting that. An application on the other hand can be exhaustively verified. There is no comparison.

      1. Xirdus · · focus · HN ↗
        First and foremost, I'm comparing specifically just having a suite of heavily personalized vibecoded apps like in OP blog post, versus using an agent directly. I'm comparing just these two options and nothing else.

        If we don't assume up front that AIs are good enough for at least one of those things, then there's no conversation to be had. Personally I'd rather have a conversation than not have a conversation, but you do you.

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