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1457 points nromiun | 4 comments | | HN request time: 1.153s | source
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xmprt ◴[] No.45076575[source]
This is one of the reasons I fear AI will harm the software engineering industry. AI doesn't have any of these limitation so it can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then no one can fix it.

It's also why I urge junior engineers to not rely on AI so much because even though it makes writing code so much faster, it prevents them from learning the quirks of the codebase and eventually they'll lose the ability to write code on their own.

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fsckboy ◴[] No.45076587[source]
>AI can write extremely complex and unreadable code that works... until it doesn't. And then

AI can fix it

I'm not defending or encouraging AI, just saying that argument doesn't work

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xmprt ◴[] No.45076613[source]
I'm talking about cases where even AI can't fix it. I've heard of a lot of stories where people vibe code their applications to 80% and then get stuck in a loop where AI is unable to solve their problems.

It's been well documented that LLMs collapse after a certain complexity level.

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1. CamperBob2 ◴[] No.45077526[source]
Most programmers can't make much sense of the output of a C compiler, either. We'll all be in that boat before long.

(To anticipate the usual reaction when I point that out: if you're going to sputter with rage and say that compilers are deterministic while AI isn't, well... save it for a future argument with someone who can be convinced that it matters.)

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2. cowboylowrez ◴[] No.45081029[source]
on the other hand, I'd love to read an argument that persuades me that determinism doesn't matter in this case because I can't form any mental model that makes determinism-ed-ness a non factor in my decision making. of course, this comes with a disclaimer that I have no experience as a vibe coder lol
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3. CamperBob2 ◴[] No.45085130[source]
Real-world code bases are already far too large for any one programmer to internalize. They might as well be uninspectable. This problem isn't going to get anything but worse in the years to come. Incremental improvements in languages and methodologies won't suffice; future systems will simply have to be designed differently. They will be based on very high-level descriptions that can be used to synthesize tests that programs written and maintained by AI models can satisfy.

Human involvement will end after the first phase, once the required test targets exist.

Basically we are going to have to stop micromanaging our toolchains and start telling them what outcomes we want. Call it "vibe coding lol" or whatever, that's how it's going to work. When you write code in a traditional high-level language, you are telling your compiler how to generate the code that actually gets executed by the CPU. But this object code, again, might as well be completely inaccessible as far as most developers are concerned. If the compiler were to achieve the same result in different, unknowable ways each time it runs, that's a horrifying notion to those same developers... but we all might as well get used to it, because soon there will be no other way forward.

Notice that the math guys are already having to deal with similar problems. Mochizuki or somebody drops a thousand-page proof on the community, and experts at the very highest levels have to waste years looking for bugs in it. They can't go on like this and they know it. They will have to give up the quaint idea of understanding something completely in order to prove or refute it, just as programmers and engineers will have to relinquish control over how our own creations work.

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4. cowboylowrez ◴[] No.45089415{3}[source]
I suspect that some sort of AI will progress to some point of usefulness, the fact that it can do as much as it can right now should count for something. On the other hand, these llms seem to still go off into the weeds time and again, and from what I read of folks experiences, I can't drop the deterministic mindset as easy as folks like you can. Still, it doesn't matter, like you say these things are here and everyones throwing time and money at them, so hopefully my concerns are overblown and unfounded.