[ajross]

People have been trying to get compilers and runtimes to generate better errors for decades, and sites like StackOverflow exist to backfill the fact that this is a really hard problem. If an AI can get you a better explanation synchronously, doesn't that in fact represent an improvement in the "messages"?

[olliej]

No because all the AI is doing is making up statistically plausible sounding nonsense? The best case output is a correct summary of the documentation page - why add a huge amount of power use alongside massive privacy invasion just to deal with that?

I have read and re-read this article and I don’t understand how this is better for any purpose other than “we put AI in something, increase our stock price!”

[ajross]

That sounds like a generic argument against any AI integration, though. "All they do is make up statistically plausible sounding nonsense" is definitionally true, but sorta specious as it turns out that nonsense is often pretty useful. In particular in this case because it gives you a "summary of the documentation page" you'd otherwise have to go look up, something we know empirically is difficult for a lot of otherwise productive folks.

[plorkyeran]

Well yes, most AI integrations are worthless and not just this one.

[MrDarcy]

> No because all the AI is doing is making up statistically plausible sounding nonsense?

Isn’t that just what we humans do with our educated guesses?

[krapp]

No. Humans can have actual domain knowledge plus contextual awareness which leads them to actually understand the subject by means of their education, and thus make guesses based on more than linguistic and syntactic plausibility. Educated guesses can be wrong, but are by definition not merely "plausible sounding nonsense."