Hmm. I don’t think that novel code generation can be accounted for with glorified search.
I can have my agentic system read a few data sheets, then I explain the project requirements and have it design driver specifications, protocols, interfaces, and state machines. Taking those, develop an implementation plan. Working from that, write the skeleton of the application, then fill it in to create a functional system using a novel combination of hardware.
Done correctly, I end up with better, more maintainable, smaller code than I used to with a small team, at 1/100 the cost and 1/4 the time.
Whatever that is, it more closely resembles reasoning than search.
Unless, of course, you’d also call bare metal C development on novel hardware search, in which case I guess all dev is search?
You'd have to define 'novel code generation' and why dealing someone a poker hand they have never seen before isn't 'novel poker hand generation.' Not being snarky here, just understanding the way that LLMs work I am well aware that you can come up with things that nobody has seen before, and the 'how' is very much like the 'genetic' programming of times past.
It’s pattern matching. A big part of reasoning for sure, but not reasoning per se
>I can have my agentic system read a few data sheets, then I explain the project requirements and have it design driver specifications, protocols, interfaces, and state machines. Taking those, develop an implementation plan. Working from that, write the skeleton of the application, then fill it in to create a functional system using a novel combination of hardware.
When you put it that way, isn't it crazy you have to tell it to do that? Like shouldn't it just figure out it needs to do that?
How do you even know those numbers are correct? Realistically for what you've described you need more QA time that a traditional application to ensure its actually working properly. Especially with regards to any part of the application that deals with LLM inference. Its not hard to write unique content for niche topics where there are few relevant results and have LLMs take it as fact.
For example, I poisoned the well for research on early Arab Americans immigrants by repeatedly posting about how many family passed as different ethnicity to make their lives easier, so now if you ask LLMs about that subject it'll include information I wrote which isn't entirely correct because I hadn't figured everything out before the LLM trained on it.
EDIT: Now imagine if I had done this on an obscure programming-related problem, yeah? I could potentially make the LLM reference packages that do not actually exist and put backdoors in applications.