‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

Coding is not solved

584 points · 544 comments · firstSpeaker

  1. askonomm · · focus · HN ↗
    What I've found is that AI allows lazy and incompetent developers to be more lazy and more incompetent. This then has the effect that product quality suffers more, faster. As a result of the sheer amount of code now being pushed out, code reviews, a thing that previously somewhat prevented lazy and incompetent developers from pushing out horrible code, is effectively dead in the water since no human can actually review such amounts of code realistically anymore. Some companies have adopted AI to review code, which, well ... you have AI make code, AI review code ... I hope you can see the stupidity here if you expect to see any deterministic results at all.

    I guess time will tell if the consumer will adapt to the lower quality of products, allowing companies to justify the existence of lazy and incompetent developers, or if the consumer will push back, forcing companies to increase the quality of their developers.

    Note: I use AI every day and it is entirely possible to create high quality software with it, so long as you are not lazy and incompetent.

    1. ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
      Limitations of AI are a thing; but one rhetorical point keeps coming up (I don't think it's just you) and confusing me:

      > I hope you can see the stupidity here if you expect to see any deterministic results at all.

      Are you expecting humans to be deterministic in the code they produce?

      1. Thanemate · · focus · HN ↗
        Someone who knows that 1 + 1 = 2 will not decide that it's suddenly 3 unless we start accounting for health problems. Making mistakes is not the same as non-deterministic.
        1. ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
          > Someone who knows that 1 + 1 = 2 will not decide that it's suddenly 3 unless we start accounting for health problems.

          And?

          The p(that kind of error) is pretty small now. At what point does a probability coming out of an LLM look like &quot;knowing&quot;, such that spitting out the wrong answer despite that probability looks like a health problem, a typo, or even just boredom? (Thinking of the Lizardman constant here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wiktionary.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lizardman%27s_Constant" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wiktionary.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lizardman%27s_Constant)

          It&#x27;s a continuum for both them and us, even if the mechanism is wildly different.

          &gt; Making mistakes is not the same as non-deterministic.

          i.e. when the dismissal is &quot;non-deterministic&quot; when it should be &quot;Making mistakes&quot;, is itself a mistake.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.