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0 pointsleptons7mo ago0 comments

Writing code that gets compiled is deterministic, but asking an LLM to produce code is a non-deterministic guessing game.

Notice how nobody is skeptical of compilers?

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aryonoco7mo ago

No one is skeptical of compilers?! I guess you haven’t met many old fashioned C systems programmers, who go out of their way to disable compiler optimisations as much as they can because “it just produces garbage”.

Every generation, we seem to add a level of abstraction conceding because for most of us, it enhances productivity. And every generation, there is a crowd who rails against the new abstraction, mostly unaware of all of the levels of abstraction they already use in their coding.

awesome_dude7mo ago

Luxury! When I were a lad we didn't have them new fangled compilers, we wrote ASM by hand, because compilers cannot (and still to this day I think) optimise ASM as well as a human

leptonsOP7mo ago

Abstractions and compilers are deterministic, no matter if a neckbeard is cranky about the results. LLMs are not deterministic, they are a guessing game. An LLM is not an abstraction, it's a distraction. If you can't tell the difference, then maybe you should lay off the "AI" slop.

awesome_dude7mo ago

I've been thinking about this - you're right that LLMs are not going to be deterministic (AIUI) when it comes to producing code to solve a problem.

BUT neither are humans, if you give two different humans the same task, then, unless they copy one another, then you will get two different results.

Further, as those humans evolve through their career, the code that they produce will also change.

Now, I do want to point out that I'm very much still at the "LLMs are an aid, not the full answer.. yet" point, but a lot of the argument against them seems to be (rapidly) coming to the point where it's no longer valid (AI slop and all).

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aryonoco7mo ago

awesome_dude7mo ago

Luxury! When I were a lad we didn't have them new fangled compilers, we wrote ASM by hand, because compilers cannot (and still to this day I think) optimise ASM as well as a human

leptonsOP7mo ago

awesome_dude7mo ago

I've been thinking about this - you're right that LLMs are not going to be deterministic (AIUI) when it comes to producing code to solve a problem.

BUT neither are humans, if you give two different humans the same task, then, unless they copy one another, then you will get two different results.

Further, as those humans evolve through their career, the code that they produce will also change.

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