[jascha_eng]

This is a great take. It applies the SaaS is dead theory at a lower level (libraries are dead) but has it a much more nuanced view.

Yeh even if LLMs are 10x better than today you probably still don't want to implement cryptography from scratch, but use a library.

I also like the 3d printing analogy. We will see how good LLMs get, but I will say that a lot of AI coded tools today have the same feeling as 3d printed hardware. If no engineer was involved the software is cheap and breaks under pressure because no one considered the edge cases. It looks good on the surface but if you use it for something serious it does break.

The engineer might still use an LLM/3d printer but where necessary he'll use a metal connection (write code by hand or at least tightly guide the LLM) to make the product sturdy.

[lelanthran]

> It looks good on the surface but if you use it for something serious it does break.

That's LLMs extending C and C++ Undefined Behaviour to every project regardless of language.

-------------------

EDIT: I tried articulating it in a blog post in a sleep-deprived frenzy of writing on Sunday - https://www.lelanthran.com/chap14/content.html

[mikert89]

The time might come when the ai just writes things like http request parsers and crypto libraries on the fly. And it will be somewhat normal

[yoyohello13]

But why? Even if you could have an AI do that it’s, if anything, a waste of cpu cycles. If you have a battle tested library that works and has been tested for trillions of request cycles why would you even want to write a new one that needs testing and maintenance? No matter how cheap code gen gets it doesn’t make sense. For something like a UI library, sure build something specific to your needs.

[mikert89]

Libraries are really built for human beings, not super intelligent machines. ORMs are built because I don’t like to and can’t write complex sql with every edge case.

Same with a lot of software, software libraries are designed to work with the deficiencies of the human mind.

There’s no reason to think ai needs these libraries in the same way

[yoyohello13]

Even in your scenario LLMs could write super optimized libraries (not intended by for humans) to do common tasks and share the code between them.

I’m not saying the future can’t get to an ai just producing everything. I’m saying it’s just plain inefficient to keep solving the same problem over and over.

[agumonkey]

I agree with part of this (see my comment above). That said our limitations were also how we produced mathematics. Categorizing world into fixed concepts is valuable i'd say.

[majormajor]

This seems like today's version of "I could write Facebook in a weekend."

What are the incentives for doing that? What are the incentives for everyone else to move?

So if proven things exist for basics, what's the incentive to not use them? If everyone decides they're too heavy, they could make and publish new libraries and tools would pick those up. And since they're old, the feature-set is probably more nuanced than you expect. YAGNI is a motto for doing less to avoid creating code debt, but writing more net new code to avoid using a stable and proven library doesn't fit that.

[mikert89]

Importing a library for everything will become a dated concept. Similar to the idea that object relational mappers might go away if the ai can just write ultra complicated hyper efficient sql for every query

[michaelmrose]

If AI makes the per line cost of producing software cheaper but you still need an expensive human in the loop then the per line cost is merely cheap not free or at the cost of electricity.

Given the choice between

A) having one AI produce a library and having 1000 produce code using that library which comes with tests human in the loop vetting documentation and examples which drastically increase the chance of the 1000 AIs doing it correctly

B) Having 1001 produce the same functionality provided by the library probably on average worse and requiring more expensive hand holding

What in that benefit of B? You might have slightly higher specificity to your use case but its more likely that the only increased specificity is shit you didn't realize you needed yet and will have to prompt and guide the AI to produce.

I fail to see how AI would obviate the need to modularize and re-use code.

[mikert89]

This take is just an intermediary take until ai takes over software engineering. In the same way, eventually self driving cars will make human drivers look dangerous

I think your thought process is not taking into account what a super logical ai can do, and how effortlessly it could generate some of this code.

[kristjansson]

> effortlessly

Real question: does your world model suppose super exponential gains in intelligence and efficiency?

[sixtram]

Why does the AI need SQL queries? Who needs that? It will just write its own ACID-compliant database with its own language, and while it's at it, reinvent the operating system as well. It's turtles all the way down.

[mikert89]

It’s actually not a ridiculous concept, but I think in some ways code will go away, and the agent itself will do what the code used to do. Software of the future will be far more dynamic and on the fly. We won’t have these rigid structures

[thesmtsolver2]

Why does the AI need hardware/chips? Why does the AI need the universe to exist? Why does the AI need math/logic to exist?

Using these preexisting will all become outdated. You will look like primitive cavemen if your agents don't build these from scratch every time you build $NEXT_BIG_THING.

Even local LLMs will be able to build these from scratch by end of 2026.

[mikert89]

Yeah I actually think the very concept of software will see agents affect out. Agents will do what you used to code. And it will be automatic

[thesmtsolver2]

Yeah, who needs things like PyTorch? Let agents do that!

[gedy]

So that's what 10x means - 10 times the code because your app has no dependencies

[majormajor]

ORMs have largely been fading away for a while because there are real wins of not using them.

Hyper-optimized HTTP request/response parsing? Yawn. Far less interesting.

AFAICT, the advantages of keeping context tight and focused have not gone away. So there would neeed to be pretty interesting advantages to not just doing the easy thing.

Build times too. I kinda doubt you're setting up strictly-modularized and tightly-controlled bazel builds for all your stuff to avoid extra recompilation... so why are we overcomplicating the easy stuff? Just because "it will probably function just as well"?

"leftpad"-level library inanity? Sure, even less need than before (there was never much). Substantial libraries? What's the point?

Hell, some of the most-used heavily-AI-coded software is going the opposite direction and jumping through hoops to keep using web libraries for UI even though they're terminal apps.

[kristjansson]

Wh … why would we want that?

[feastingonslop]

Why would you not?

[thesmtsolver2]

Libraries are more well tested. Unless you "regurgitate code in a library" as "not importing any libraries".

[feastingonslop]

What value is there in tested code when you have the option of superlative, flawless code?

[kristjansson]

How do you determine flawlessness? How you even approximate a guarantee of it? To what specification is flawlessness judged, and can you precisely and completely relay that spec to your friendly local robot more efficiently than it can vendor / import existing libraries?

[mikert89]

It’ll just spit the code out. I vibe coded some with cookie handling the other day that worked. Should I have done it? Nope. But the ai did it and I allowed it

The concept of using a library for everything will become outdated

[michaelmrose]

Either you didn't need a library for that or you could have vibe coded it using the library even easier.

[mikert89]

It read the library and created a custom implementation for my use case. The implementation was interoperable with a popular nextjs with library. It was a hack sure, but it also took me three minutes

[thesmtsolver2]

What is the advantage of coding something from scratch vs importing a well tested library?

[feastingonslop]

If the LLM writes better code (and it will) then its code should be favored over a library.

[mikert89]

People aren’t mentally prepared for the LLMs spitting out flawless code

[kristjansson]

The value of a library is not just that it does a thing you want, but that it doesn’t do all the things you’d prefer it didn’t.

It’s easy to write a cookie parser for a simple case; clearly your robot was able to hand you one for millidollars. How confident are you that you’ve exhaustively specified the exact subset of situations your code is going to encounter, so the missing functionality doesn’t matter? How confident are you that its implementation doesn’t blow up under duress? How many tokens do you want to commit to confirming that (reasoning, test, pick your poison)?

[dottedmag]

(Author here) That's why I spent a sinificant chunk of the article talking about what should and what should not be reinvented.

[mikert89]

My true opinion is that your questions posed here, may become irrelevant in the face of super intelligence

[yoyohello13]

We should probably not be making decisions based on the assumption that super intelligence is coming.

If it does come, nothing we do now really matters. If it doesn’t come and we cash a bunch of checks assuming it will, we are screwed.

[kristjansson]

I mean ASI could just generate the pixels of a webpage at 60hz. And who needs cookies if ASI knows who you are after seeing half a frame of the dust on your wall, and then knows all the pixels and all the clicks that have transpired across all your interactions with its surfaces. And who needs webpages when ASI can conjure anything on a screen and its robots and drones can deliver any earthly desire at the cost of its inputs. That is if we’re not all made into paper clips or dead fighting for control of the ASML guild at that point.

I say all that mostly in jest, but to take your point somewhat seriously: the most accurate thing you’ve said is that no one is ready for super intelligence. What a great and terrible paroxysm it would be.

[agumonkey]

Which is the reverse of how humans design things, layers, modules. LLMs act as generalized compilers. Impressive but at the same time you end up with a static-like bunch of files instead of a system of parts (that said I'm not a great user of llms so maybe people managed to produce proto-frameworks with them, or maybe that will be the next phase.. module-oriented llm training).

[heavyset_go]

I was assured manufacturing was dead because we'd all be 3D printing everything we need in our garages.

[dottedmag]

(Author here) I'm actually talking in the article why it hasn't happened.