[starfallg]

I guess the flip side to that is the iterative conversation to develop these specifications is exactly what AI chatbots are good at.

It's also the main reason why very structured AI agent orchestration for software engineering modelled on rigid processes fails to really provide much value.

[layer8]

I suspect that the reason AI chatbots are not very good at developing such specifications is that they don’t build a domain model in their “head” — the only models they have are already hardcoded in their weights. A human learning a domain, on the other hand, forms new neural connections representing the model of the domain that they build in their head.

[starfallg]

Chatbots are good at helping humans arrive at the specification. Apart from people that has deep expertise and/or talent in this area, humans aren't very good at building these specifications. That's the topic of this exchange.

[layer8]

I disagree, unless it’s about a topic the LLM already knows or can research based on public information, or unless the domain expert can actually judge the specification and have it iteratively corrected by the LLM until they are satisfied. That’s generally not the case, and LLMs aren’t good at controlling the iteration themselves until they are satisfied, with the result being a complete and accurate specification for the domain.

If LLMs were good at that, then for coding we wouldn’t need to precisely specify what we want them to code, instead they would ask us until it’s crystal clear what precisely we want in all details.