alt Hacker NewsYou trust machine code because it was produced by a deterministic system that was written and tested thoroughly by other engineers.
AI systems are not the same. You can't guarantee deterministic output.
Also, code is still the best language we have to convey our intentions as engineers into function. Natural language is too imprecise and ambiguous.
Understanding the code allows us to understand the intention behind the code and identify bugs, plan and architect better. Inspecting prompts gives you a blinkered view of the system meaning you're more likely to make incorrect assumptions leading to serious bugs.
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But in chemical science you would not "understand" everything. You cook with ingredients where you don't fully understand then.
There are always limits.
Engineering human types are often guilty of saying something is low cost but then not doing it themselves. Great, "understand everything".
Trust us trust. You trust an entity. What the author is describing is a new kind of transaction. It's not that AI causes people to lie suddenly (although if you trusted the wrong people this might happen to you, but YOU were wrong then) but now you have a lot of work being done more at the edge of uncertainty and recommendations. Ideas are not ideas anymore, they are working implementations.
So instead of submitting discussions or requests for features, you literally submit implemented features because the cost is lower. This is good. You just have to realize that you are starting the discussion with a working implementation. If you continually try to act like this is not the case, without someone literally lying to you about it, this is more about just accepting a now workflow.
Right, it's a chain of trust between the layers. The link I choose next to me helps determine the quality of successive links, whether I inspect them or not.
When I buy a wooden shack from a carpenter, I'd never expect them to core-sample every plank to ensure it's good wood. That's because a good carpenter habitually buys wood from a good supplier, and will have the experience to detect other suspicious indicators.
Similarly, my coworker might not have verified the machine code, but I can be pretty confident they didn't vibe-install a compiler by Ken Thompson that puts backdoors into the binary.