[Finbel]

>Also, when did we stop liking to learn? Why is it a bad thing to know all the ins and outs of a programming language?

I do not know the inns and out of the assembly layer my high level code end up as. It's not because I don't like to learn, it's because I genuinely don't need to. At a certain level of AI performance, how will this be any different?

[0xpgm]

However, curious programmers who develop in high level languages will dabble with assembly maybe for fun, and will be much better off for it than those who treat parts of the stack like a black box never to be opened.

[californical]

Because you may not know the specifics of the assembly being generated, but you’ve likely learned a language built on top of assembly. And the compilers do some great tricks behind the scenes to generate efficient assembly, but those tricks are specifically coupled to semantics of the source language.

An LLM is not coupled to anything and can generate output that simply does not relate to the input. This doesn’t happen with compilers, and if it does, then it’s a specific bug to be addressed. An LLM can never guarantee certain output based on the input.

If I write x < 100, I know exactly how the compiler will treat that code every single time, and I know what < means and how it differs from <=

If I tell an LLM that “I want numbers up to 100.” Will that give me < or <= and will it be consistent every single time, even the ten thousandth program that I write?

The language is ambiguous where the code is specific

[Finbel]

To me this is semantics as far as it's related to "why don't you want to learn?"

I have a co-worker in another team that write java endpoins we consume. I can tell him what I need and I trust the output. I don't need to know java to trust him, it doesn't mean I don't want to learn.

There are thousand examples like this across every stack and abstraction level. From ssh-handshakes to gps.

Sure my co-worker is fundamentally different from a compiler which is fundamentally different from an LLM.

My argument is that the chain-of-trust where you offload knowledge to an external source is identical. We do it all the time but somehow doing it with an LLM means we no longer want to learn?

[sdevonoes]

One difference is: to use a top notch compiler/assembler you don’t need to pay. They are open source and have a lot of support. To use the latest and greatest models (bc no one around likes to use non sota ones) you need to pay a premium price.

Multibillion dollars companies are now the gateway for every line of code you need to write. That’s dystopian. It sucks

[Finbel]

Yes, but that's a completely different argument (that I agree with). Essentially, yes they are conceptually similar but one is bad because you have to pay rent to use it.

[Zetaphor]

Local models are increasingly becoming capable of taking on serious coding tasks that I would have previously sent to a frontier lab