Why the AI Renaissance Keeps Not Arriving

svachalek•18 minutes ago

The patterns it talks about are true, but imo largely because of model defaults rather than model range. That is, if you prompt for a pelican on a bicycle, each model is going to have a small variety of ways to do it (the default). But if you add more details and requirements to the prompt, there are many, many different ways even a basic model can solve it (the range).

The additional prompting doesn't necessarily need to tell the model specifically what to fix or do better, sometimes it's just enough to break it out of its habit. Asking for a smart looking, middle aged pelican on a sporty red bike isn't making the problem easier but does break it out of its boring defaults.

I wouldn't go so far as to say PEBKAC but the good news is there's still a role for humans in the loop.

MarkusQ•about 2 hours ago

About half the people I discuss this with seem to think LLMs are great and don't see any problems with their output. The other half seem to get nothing but an endless stream of plausibly shaped rubbish.

It doesn't seem to depend on what model they use or how they prompt it. In code, there seems to be a loose correlation with testing styles; I've previously noticed that some people write tests to show that the code works as intended, and others try to write tests to show that it can't fail in ways that were unintended. But that correlation is weak.

I'm really puzzled by this.

gonzalohm•about 1 hour ago

It's also not whether the code passes tests or not. Sometimes AI does the thing I ask for, and it works, but it's so different from the way I would do it or it's too verbose so I just scrap it and code it by hand.

I mostly use it for boilerplate code nowadays. Anything more complicated and it takes me more effort to review the output than to just code it slowly

saulpw•16 minutes ago

Does it seem like it bifurcates based on the person? I've had both experiences myself, sometimes with the same model and within ~days of each other on seemingly similar tasks. It's almost impossible to deny sometimes that actual intelligence is being expressed (and could not be regurgitated intelligence from some random internet page), but then I see firsthand the eye-rolling "intelligence-shaped" output from something else and wonder where I went wrong.

It kinda feels like Michigan J Claude sometimes.

skybrian•about 1 hour ago

Doing things the same, standard way each time is often good. Most of the code we write is obvious. We notice it when it's a weird quirk rather than just being the most straightforward way.

I wonder how long it will take to fix the quirks?

Legend2440•about 2 hours ago

What do you mean not arriving? It's already here. AI models are awesome and I use them every day, as does every other software dev I know.

Why the AI Renaissance Keeps Not Arriving

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