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AI agents: Less capability, more reliability, please

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419 points serjester | 4 comments | 31 Mar 25 14:45 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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joshdavham ◴[31 Mar 25 15:35 UTC] No.43536242[source]▶
My rule of thumb has thus far been: if I’m gonna allow AI to write any bit of code for me, then I must, at a bare minimum, be able to understand that code.

There’s no way I could do what some of these “vibe coders” are doing where they allow AI to write code for them that they don’t even understand.

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AlexandrB ◴[31 Mar 25 16:04 UTC] No.43536559[source]▶
I think there's a lot of code that gets written that's either disposable or effectively "write only" in that no one is expected to maintain it. I have friends who write a lot of this code for tasks like data analysis for retail and "vibe coding" isn't that crazy in such a domain.

Basically, what's worse? "Vibes" code that no one understands or a cascade of 20 spreadsheets that no one understands? At least with the "vibes" code you can stick it in git and have some semblance of sane revision control and change tracking.

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1. pton_xd ◴[31 Mar 25 16:16 UTC] No.43536711[source]▶
> I have friends who write a lot of this code for tasks like data analysis for retail and "vibe coding" isn't that crazy in such a domain.

That sort of makes sense, but then again... if you run some analysis code and it spits out a few plots, how do you know what you're looking at is correct if you have no idea what the code is doing?

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2. kibwen ◴[31 Mar 25 17:15 UTC] No.43537346[source]▶
> how do you know what you're looking at is correct if you have no idea what the code is doing?

Does it reaffirm the biases of the one who signs my paychecks? If so, then the code is correct.

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3. usui ◴[31 Mar 25 18:14 UTC] No.43537964[source]▶
LOL thanks for the laughs. But yes seriously though, most kinds of data analysis jobs several rungs down the ladder where the result is not in a critical path amount to reaffirming what upper people believe. Don't rock the boat.
4. AlexandrB ◴[31 Mar 25 18:24 UTC] No.43538069[source]▶
Lol, that's definitely a factor. Actually plotting is the perfect example because python is really popular in the space and matplotlib sucks so much. While an analyst may not understand Python very well, they often understand the data itself through either previous projects or through other analysis tools. It's kind of like vibe coding a UI for a backend that's hand built.