Not only would an engineer not need to consider the abstraction layer between their input and the code but they would be unable to fully interrogate that abstraction because the code extruder does not need to show its work.

I think you’re actually right on the money here, nowhere near delusional, especially since you come from a Lisp background. I really appreciate Lisp (and Smalltalk) for the “live-coding” and universal inspectability/debuggability aspects in the tooling. I appreciate test-driven development as I’ve seen it presented in the Smalltalk context, as it essentially encourages you to “program in the debugger” and be aware of where the blank spots in your program specification are. (Although I’m aware that putting TDD into practice on an industrial scale is an entirely different proposition, especially for toolchains that aren’t explicitly built around the concept.)

However, LLM coding assistants are, if not the exact opposite of this sort of tooling, something so far removed as to be in a different and more confusing realm. Since it’s usually a cloud service, you have no access to begin debugging, and it’s drawing from a black box of vector weights even if you do have access. If you manage to figure out how to poke at that, you’re then faced with a non-trivial process of incremental training (further lossy compression) or possibly a rerun of the training process entirely. The lack of legibility and forthright adaptability is an inescapable consequence of the design decision that the computer is now a separate entity from the user, rather than a tool that the user is using.

I’ve posed the question in another slightly less skeptical forum, what advantage do we gain from now having two intermediate representations of a program: the original, fully-specified programming language, as well as the compiler IR/runtime bytecode? I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer.

if a Franciscan priest gets really good at basketball, is he considered an air friar

What, Ctrl-C wouldn’t work? kill -9?

I can’t quite put my finger on why, but “recreationally jacking off onto microscope slides” does not suggest “permanent overclass” to me

(The horrible unhoused people who mumble incoherently vs the chad founder who shouts ‘will you be a cofounder with me?’ at people)

Or just, y’know, Alex Karp

Somebody vibe-coded an init system/service manager written in Emacs Lisp, seemingly as a form of criticism through performance art, and wrote this screed in the repo describing why they detest AI coding practices: https://github.com/emacs-os/el-init/blob/master/RETROSPECTIVE.md

But then they include this choice bit:

All in all, this software is planned to be released to MELPA because there is nothing else quite like it for Emacs as far as service supervision goes. It is actually useful – for tinkerers, init hackers, or regular users who just want to supervise userland processes. Bugs reported are planned to be hopefully squashed, as time permits.

Why shit up the package distribution service if you know it’s badly-coded software that you don’t actually trust? 90% of the AI-coding cleanup work is going to be purging shit like this from services like npm and pip, so why shit on Emacs users too? Pretty much undermines what little good might come out of the whole thing, IMO.

it has to be said, a runtime CVE in vim would be pretty embarrassing

Rhomboid? Rheumatoid bactothefuture?

Doc Brown couldn’t get optimal flux dispersal across the surface of the time machine without the heavy biofilm coating. It’s not a fetish thing, people! Stop saying that!

the capital to fund their own, even safer labs.

I wonder, is this a theory of “safety” analogous to what’s driven the increased gigantism of vehicles in the US? Sure seems like it.

Just another reminder of how the EA movement is full of right wing thinking and how most of it hasn’t considered even the most basic of leftist thought.

I continue to maintain that EA boils down to high-dollar consumerism focused on intangible goods. I’m sure that statement won’t fly on LW or any other EA forum, but my thoughts on psychiatry don’t fly at a Scientologist convention either.

E: If they all hate programming so much, perhaps a change of job is in question, sure might not pay as much, but it might make them happier.

Surely at least a few of them have worked up enough seed capital to try their hand at used-car dealerships. I can attest that the juicier markets just outside the Bay Area are fairly saturated, but maybe they could push into lesser-served locales like Lost Hills or Weaverville.

This reminds me of when Steve Jobs would introduce every new Mac release by talking about how fast it could render in Photoshop. I wonder how he would do in our brave new era of completely ass-pulling your own bespoke benchmark frameworks.

spent $20k on electricity blending them

They would probably be even more impressed that you only spent $20k

smoke GPUs every day

a new school of philosophy called “CosmoErotic Humanism.”

I don’t know about all of that, but I do know that every major TV market in the country offers multiple chances per night for this poor fellow to re-devote himself to the poetry-in-motion of a certain other erotic Cosmo.

He might have revised it in more recent publications and/or brainfarts. If I were a Responsible Internet Debater™, I would go check, but the whole point is that i could give a fuck

Cool! I keep on saying that there will be at least one more AI bubble before 2045, because IIRC that’s the latest date for a singularity that Kurzweil gives, and this dude comes along with a date that’s conveniently ~halfway between now and then for people to anchor on. Thanks dude! If I find an online sod retailer that sells single square feet, I’ll send you some grass to touch!

I knew nothing about, and had no opinion on, daycare facilities in Minnesota run by Somali immigrants, before Trump-supporting media entities decided to make the topic an astroturf issue. On the other hand, I had plenty of experience with people whose worldviews had been severely warped by such coordinated media campaigns. Mr. McKenzie should take some time to reflect on this.

Did any actual billionaires show up to press their case, or was it all just cronies?

if realized, this allows volkswagen group to manufacture regular cars for a long, long time even after oil refining stops. originally, it was proposed as a hypothetical luxury product for antique car owners, because it’s physically possible, but doesn’t make sense in energy or cost terms.

If VW is trying to mainstream this, that tells me they’re scrambling to keep milking the premium end of their portfolio that relies on extravagant IC engines (Porsche, Lamborghini, Audi etc.). Very bad sign for them, as the ID Buzz van looks to be a complete failure to the point of “pausing” production, and VW Commercial Vehicles is their backbone in Europe, much like Ford relies on truck sales in the US. I watched a video a few weeks ago that discussed how their European van/utility vehicle portfolio is aging and totally fragmented, to the point that they are selling rebadged Ford Transit vans manufactured in Turkey. I thought it was bad when they were badge-engineering Dodge Caravans for the US market for a few years, but totally bungling the EV van rollout in Europe is seriously bad business for them.

It was also hilarious how the rich guys on the Porsche forums were bad-mouthing the rather sexy Mission X EV supercar concept a couple years ago. No matter how cool a 9,000-rpm flat-six is, letting yourself be driven by the guys who just want you to keep making that forever will not stave off everyone else (now including China and Vietnam!).