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600 points antirez | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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krupan ◴[] No.44627207[source]
What is the overall feedback loop with LLMs writing code? Do they learn as they go like we do? Do they just learn from reading code on GitHub? If the latter, what happens as less and less code gets written by human experts? Do the LLMs then stagnate in their progress and start to degrade? Kind of like making analog copies of analog copies of analog copies?
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1. steveklabnik ◴[] No.44627756[source]
> Do they learn as they go like we do?

It's complicated. You have to understand that when you ask an LLM something, you have the model itself, which is kind of like a function: put something in, get something out. However, you also pass an argument to that function: the context.

So, in a literal sense, no, they do not learn as they go, in the sense that the model, that function, is unchanged by what you send it. But the context can be modified. So, in some sense, an LLM in a agentic loop that goes and reads some code from GitHub can include that information in the context it uses in the future, so it will "learn" within the session.

> If the latter, what happens as less and less code gets written by human experts?

So, this is still a possible problem, because future trainings of future LLMs will end up being trained on code written by LLMs. If this is a problem or not is yet to be seen, I don't have a good handle on the debates in this area, personally.