alt Hacker NewsI think it's more: when I don't have access to a compiler I am useless. It's better to go for a walk than learn assembly. AI agents turn our high-level language into code, with various hints, much like the compiler.
Replies
noosphr • yesterday at 10:24 PM
If your compiler produced working executable 20% of the time this would be an apt comparison.
ofjcihen • yesterday at 9:54 PM
Still misses the mark. You aren’t useless in the same way because you are still in control of reasoning about the exact code even if you never actually write it.
orphea • today at 9:15 AM
Compilers are deterministic, LLMs are not. They are not "much like".
jwrallie • yesterday at 10:09 PM
The difference is that there is a company that can easily take your agents away from you.
nunez • today at 1:58 AM
Installed on your machine vs. cloud service that's struggling to maintain capacity is an unfair comparison...
If my compiler "went down" I could still think through the problem I was trying to solve, maybe even work out the code on paper. I could reach a point where I would be fairly confident that I had the problem solved, even though I lacked the ability to actually implement the solution.
If my LLM goes down, I have nothing. I guess I could imagine prompts that might get it to do what I want, but there's no guarantee that those would work once it's available again. No amount of thought on my part will get me any closer to the solution, if I'm relying on the LLM as my "compiler".