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Andrej Karpathy: Software in the era of AI [video]

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1479 points sandslash | 6 comments | 19 Jun 25 00:33 UTC | HN request time: 1.556s | source | bottom
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tudorizer ◴[19 Jun 25 15:16 UTC] No.44319472[source]▶
95% terrible expression of the landscape, 5% neatly dumbed down analogies.

English is a terrible language for deterministic outcomes in complex/complicated systems. Vibe coders won't understand this until they are 2 years into building the thing.

LLMs have their merits and he sometimes aludes to them, although it almost feels accidental.

Also, you don't spend years studying computer science to learn the language/syntax, but rather the concepts and systems, which don't magically disappear with vibe coding.

This whole direction is a cheeky Trojan horse. A dramatic problem, hidden in a flashy solution, to which a fix will be upsold 3 years from now.

I'm excited to come back to this comment in 3 years.

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diggan ◴[19 Jun 25 15:27 UTC] No.44319579[source]▶
> English is a terrible language for deterministic outcomes in complex/complicated systems

I think that you seem to be under the impression that Karpathy somehow alluded to or hinted at that in his talk, which indicates you haven't actually watched the talk, which makes your first point kind of weird.

I feel like one of the stronger points he made, was that you cannot treat the LLMs as something they're explicitly not, so why would anyone expect deterministic outcomes from them?

He's making the case for coding with LLMs, not letting the LLMs go by themselves writing code ("vibe coding"), and understanding how they work before attempting to do so.

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tudorizer ◴[19 Jun 25 15:58 UTC] No.44319869[source]▶
I watched the entire talk, quite carefully. He explicitly states how excited he was about his tweet mentioning English.

The disclaimer you mention was indeed mentioned, although it's "in one ear, out the other" with most of his audience.

If I give you a glazed donut with a brief asterisk about how sugar can cause diabetes will it stop you from eating the donut?

You also expect deterministic outcomes when making analogies with power plants and fabs.

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1. fifilura ◴[19 Jun 25 16:09 UTC] No.44319978[source]▶
Either way, I am not sure it is a requirement on HN to read/view the source.

Particularly not a 40min video.

Maybe it is tongue-in-cheek, maybe I am serious. I am not sure myself. But sometimes the interesting discussions comes from what is on top of the posters mind when viewing the title. Is that bad?

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2. diggan ◴[19 Jun 25 16:24 UTC] No.44320112[source]▶
> Is that bad?

It doesn't have to be. But it does get somewhat boring and trite after a while when you start noticing that certain subjects on HN tend to attract general and/or samey comments about $thing, rather than the submission topic within $thing, and I do think that is against the guidelines.

> Please don't post shallow dismissals [...] Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. [...]

The specific part of:

> English is a terrible language for deterministic outcomes

Strikes me as both as a generic tangent about LLMs, and the comment as a whole feels like a shallow dismissal of the entire talk, as Karpathy never claims English is a good language for deterministic outcomes, nor have I heard anyone else make that claim.

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3. tudorizer ◴[19 Jun 25 16:32 UTC] No.44320188[source]▶
Might sound like a generic tangent, but it's the conclusion people will leave from the talk.
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4. diggan ◴[19 Jun 25 16:41 UTC] No.44320265{3}[source]▶
But is it curious? Is it thoughtful and substantive? Maybe it could have been thoughtful, if it felt like it was in response to what was mentioned in the submission.
5. karaterobot ◴[19 Jun 25 17:03 UTC] No.44320493[source]▶
It's odd! The guidelines don't say anything about having to read or watch what the posts linked to, all they say is it's inappropriate to accuse someone you're responding to of not having done so.

There is a community expectation that people will know what they're talking about before posting, and in most cases that means having read the article. At the same time, I suspect that in many cases a lot of people commenting have not actually read the thing they're nominally commenting on, and they get away with it because the people upvoting them haven't either.

However, I think it's a good idea to do so, at least to make a top-level comment on an article. If you're just responding to someone else's comment, I don't think it's as necessary. But to stand up and make a statement about something you know nothing about seems buffoonish and would not, in general, elevate the level of discussion.

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6. tudorizer ◴[19 Jun 25 17:24 UTC] No.44320692[source]▶
I accept any equivalents of reading comprehension tests to prove thay I watched the video, as I have many of Andrej's in the past. He's generally a good communicator, defo easy to follow.