The Dangerous Illusion of AI Coding? - Jeremy Howard

Comments · 511

• MA

  @MachineLearningStreetTalk · 6 months ago · pinned

  RESCRIPT: <a href="https://app.rescript.info/public/share/BhX5zP3b0m63srLOQDKBTFTooSzEMh_ARwmDG_h_izk">https://app.rescript.info/public/share/BhX5zP3b0m63srLOQDKBTFTooSzEMh_ARwmDG_h_izk</a><br>PDF: <a href="https://app.rescript.info/api/public/sessions/62d06c0336c567d6/pdf">https://app.rescript.info/api/public/sessions/62d06c0336c567d6/pdf</a>

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• JZ

  @JZ50702 · 6 months ago

  The first half of the interview shows Howard has correct understanding of LLM and the second half shows his heart is in the right place. He has my respect.

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• GO

  @Gornius · 6 months ago (edited)

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHBEQ-Ryo24&amp;t=1685">28:05</a> That&apos;s the most important part for me. When I write code organically I often stumble upon parts of the codebase that I don&apos;t need to implement a feature. Management or somebody else who is not software engineer might think it means I lose time navigating a codebase, but every time I am surprised how often I can solve some issues immediately, because I instantly know what I need to do.<br><br>It stuck to me how first developer in our team who automated most of his work with AI told us that he&apos;s doing an AI detox, because he realized he lost this ability. Things that months ago he would have solved immediately now required involving AI AND him understanding the months of codebase changed by AI.<br><br>I use AI in coding mainly to navigate through documentation and I think it actually made me more productive. If you think about it, it&apos;s processing natural language - exactly the use case that LLMs were designed for. Of course from time to time it hallucinates some methods or classes that don&apos;t exist, but gives enough context so I can find it in documentation far sooner that if I had googled it or decided to find it manually.

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• TH

  @thedreadedgman · 6 months ago

  the section comparing vibe coding to gambling slot machines is absolutely genius! I love this, wonderful video

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• AL

  @AlternativeTakes · 6 months ago

  this is by far the most intelligent and non bullshit take on genai coding.

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• ER

  @ernestooropeza6150 · 5 months ago (edited)

  I feel like I just discovered one of the best YouTube channels to accompany me on my computer science journey.<br><br>This is coming from an applied math major who is currently binging the CS curriculum in my last semester.

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• AN

  @andreafeelsfantastic · 6 months ago

  Watching this video has DRAMATICALLY improved the quality of YouTube’s recommendations for me on what else to watch. So I would owe you my thanks even if this weren’t one of the best conversations I have ever heard about AI, which it absolutely is.

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• AL

  @alanc497 · 5 months ago

  my favorite tech/code podcast, with the best measured takes who don&apos;t go into hype or doom or crazy extrapolation of the present, just thoughtful observations, thank u

• ER

  @ericmichel3857 · 6 months ago

  I am not a software engineer but I see the same thing happening everywhere. I am an MRI service engineer and have been doing this in various capacities for almost 40 years. Back in the day the systems were far more analog. Calibrating and testing systems took days with elaborate setup and adjustments, and we traced circuits to component level. It gave me a much deeper understanding of how the system functioned and how things can go wrong and interact with each other. Now, what was a row of cabinets is a single board or module and is 90% digital with built in sensors and diagnostics. Calibrations that took days and now you drop in a phantom and the system calibrates itself in about an hour, which is great when it works. And when something fails the diagnostics and log data practically tell you what part to replace.<br>The problem is all the newer engineers really have very little idea what is going on and become glorified part changers which is all that is needed nine times out of ten. However, on those times it doesn&apos;t work they have no way of understanding how or why and they just keep changing parts till it works, or they call in someone like me. I try to explain what is happening and why, the problem is the automated systems work so well they don&apos;t really need to know these things in order to do the job effectively and so they never really learn it well. The thing is as more and more people with this expertise and understanding retire, there is virtually no way to replace it. I have seen cases where they replaced an entire $80K cabinet that only needed a $15 part, but until I got there they had no idea. <br>The problem is you don&apos;t need an army of people with deeper understanding and experience to keep these systems running most of the time. And on those rare occasions where that is required , they bring in someone like me, well for now anyway. The thing is it is not practical or efficient for everyone to take the time and effort. And they see it as a huge waste of time, and for the most part they are not wrong. You can try to force them to learn it as suggested in this talk about forcing software engineers to write their own code for a few years. Good luck with that, I heard an eight year complaining about why she had to learn to read and write because the computer will just tell her what it says and write it for her too. I am sure there are many skills and knowledge we have already lost in our modern society, it may be that this is inevitable.

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• MA

  @markusvanalmsick537 · 6 months ago

  Let&apos;s also give credit to Theo Gray for the Mathematica notebook interface. He wrote the interface 40 years ago.

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• MR

  @mrjoeing450 · 4 months ago

  What a great post! &nbsp;I love this and also how you showed the actual articles.....Brilliant!🎉. &nbsp;I truly enjoyed this! &nbsp;Thank you! &nbsp;Cheers!

• DI

  @dimakarpov1956 · 6 months ago

  It is so satisfying to find some where an idea you creating yourself: coding != programming - that is wrote multiple time across my diaries.The programming is decomposition the problem into components, and defining contracts between them. Because the real demand is to adopt the application to the constantly changing requirements of the market. That&apos;s so neat, to find the same in the title of a video.

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