logoalt Hacker News

datsci_est_2015yesterday at 12:58 PM1 replyview on HN

> you are overestimating the skill of code review.

“You are overestimating the skill of [reading, comprehending, and critically assessing code of a non-guaranteed quality]” is an absurd statement if you properly expand out what “code review” means.

I don’t care if you code review the CSS file for the Bojangles online menu web page, but you better be code reviewing the firmware for my dad’s pacemaker.

This whole back and forth with LLM-generated code makes me think that the marginal utility of a lot of code the strong proponents write is <1¢. If I fuck up my code, it costs our partners $200/hr per false alert, which obliterates the profit margin of using our software in the first place.


Replies

AIorNotyesterday at 1:49 PM

By far most of the code LLMs write is for crappy crud apps and webapps not pacemakers and rockets

We can capture enough reliability on what LLMs produce there by guided integration tests and UX tests along with code review and using other LLMs to review along with other strategies to prvent semantic and code drift

Do you know how much crap wordpress ,drupal and Joomla sites I have seen?

Just that work can be automated away

But Ive also worked in high end and mission critical delivery and more formal verification etc - that’s just moving the goalposts on what AI can do- it will get there eventually

Last year you all here were arguing AI Couldn’t code - now everyone has moved the goalposts to formal high end and mission critical ops- yes when money matters we humans are still needed of course - no one denying that- its the utility of the sole human developer against the onslaught of machine aided coding

This profession is changing rapidly- people are stuck in denial

show 1 reply