←back to thread

Naur's "Programming as Theory Building" and LLMs replacing human programmers

(ratfactor.com)
108 points bertman | 1 comments | 28 Apr 25 06:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
Show context
n4r9 ◴[28 Apr 25 10:34 UTC] No.43819695[source]▶
Although I'm sympathetic to the author's argument, I don't think they've found the best way to frame it. I have two main objections i.e. points I guess LLM advocates might dispute.

Firstly:

> LLMs are capable of appearing to have a theory about a program ... but it’s, charitably, illusion.

To make this point stick, you would also have to show why it's not an illusion when humans "appear" to have a theory.

Secondly:

> Theories are developed by doing the work and LLMs do not do the work

Isn't this a little... anthropocentric? That's the way humans develop theories. In principle, could a theory not be developed by transmitting information into someone's brain patterns as if they had done the work?

replies(6): >>43819742 #>>43821151 #>>43821318 #>>43822444 #>>43822489 #>>43824220 #
1. psychoslave ◴[28 Apr 25 15:17 UTC] No.43822444[source]▶
> To make this point stick, you would also have to show why it's not an illusion when humans "appear" to have a theory.

That burden of proof is on you, since you are presumably human and you are challenging the need of humans to have more than a mere appearance of having a theory when they claim to have one.

Note that even when the only theoretical assumption we go with is that we will have a good laugh watching other people going crazy after random bullshits thrown at them, we still have a theory.