The Rise of Whatever

Still don't get it. LLM outputs are nondeterministic. LLMs invent APIs that don't exist. That's why you filter those outputs through agent constructions, which actually compile code. The nondeterminism of LLMs don't make your compiler nondeterministic.

All sorts of ways to knock LLM-generated code. Most I disagree with, all colorable. But this article is based on a model of LLM code generation from 6 months ago which is simply no longer true, and you can't gaslight your way back to Q1 2024.

I know the author already addressed this, literally calling out HN by name, but I just don't get it. You don't even need agents (though I'm sure they help), I still just use regular ChatGPT or Copilot or whatever and it's still occasionally useful. You type in what you want it to do, it gives you code, and usually the code works. Can we appreciate how insane this would have been, what, half a decade ago? Are our standards literally "the magic english-to-code machine doesn't work 100% of the time, so it's total crap, utterly useless"?

I absolutely agree with the general thrust of the article, the overall sense of disillusionment, the impact LLM abuse is going to have on education, etc. I don't even particularly like LLMs. But it really does feel like gaslighting to the extent that when these essays make this sort of argument (LLMs being entirely useless for coding) it just makes me take them less seriously.

Indeed. This is how to spot an ideologue with an axe to grind, not someone whose beliefs are shaped by dispassionate observation.