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alickz

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what if the LLM gets something wrong that the operator (a junior dev perhaps) doesn't even know it's wrong?

the same thing that always happens if a dev gets something wrong without even knowing it's wrong - either code review/QA catches it, or the user does, and a ticket is created

if it fails here, it will fail with other things, in not such obvious ways.

is infallibility a realistic expectation of a software tool or its operator?

The only GUI products that work are GUIs that you can interface with, or that perform tasks for you

Maybe the real value of AI, particularly LLMs, is in the interface it provides for other things, and not in the AI itself

What if AI isn't the _thing_? What if it's the thing that gets us _to_ the thing?

Also if the README is to be believed the following are also hidden behind an Apple DID (not driver):

- Multi-device Connectivity

- Accessibility Settings and Hearing Aid

While the following are exclusive to Apple devices for market reasons:

- Receive Battery Information

- Set/Receive ANC Modes

- Set Adaptive Audio Noise settings

- Receive In-Ear detection Status

- Personalized Volume (use at your own risk - might randomly boost volume to some high level)

- Conversational Awareness

- Ear Detection

- Siri (Voice assistant on long stem press)

- Hold and Press configuration

- Head Tracking (for Spatial Audio and Head Gestures)

- Rename AirPods

https://github.com/kavishdevar/librepods/issues/20

I imagine limiting such features to Apple devices is more about incentivizing the Apple Ecosystem than quality or software concerns

Some skills, like framing, values, balance, etc. become even more important differentiators.

I agree. I think many artists in the future will be closer to directors/cinematographers/editors than performers

Many of the skills artists have today will still be necessary and transferable, but what will separate the good artists from the bad artists will be their ability to communicate their ideas to agents / other humans

Same with software developers I suspect - communication will be the most important skill of all, and the rockstar loner devs who don't work well in teams will slowly phase out

AI has no intent or creativity, so it can be neither right nor wrong, neither good nor bad.

AI is just a wrapper around a tool - it doesn't need intention or creativity because those come from the user in the form of prompts (which are by definition intentional)

It's just a Natural Language Interface for calling CLI tools mostly, just like how GUIs are just graphical interfaces for calling CLI tools, but no one thinks a GUI has no intentionality or creativity even when using stochastic/probabilistic tools

Anything a user can do with an AI they could also do with a GUI, it would just take longer and more practice

Either everything generative AI creates is slop or nothing is. So everything is.

But then how do you know something is slop before you know if it's made with GenAI? Does all art exist as Schrodinger's Slop until you can prove GenAI was used? (if that's even possible)

Arc Raiders, and their previous game The Finals, uses AI in some capacity for Voice Acting - though they do still hire VA and make it explicit in their contract offer

Some of the voice lines were created using generative artificial intelligence tools, using an original sample of voice lines from voice actors hired specifically with an AI-use contractual clause, similar to the studio's production process in The Finals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_Raiders

Great game though, I'm really enjoying it too

I come from a Swift/Kotlin background and I've been learning Rust for fun in my spare time

From what I heard online I was expecting it to be a lot harder to understand!

The moving/borrowing/stack/heap stuff isn't simple by any means, and I'm sure as I go it will get even harder, but it's just not as daunting as I'd expected

It helps that I love compiler errors and Rust is full of them :D Every error the compiler catches is an error my QA/users don't

Vibe engineering 10 months ago

LLM generated code is noisy as hell, for no good reason

You can direct it to generate code/docs in whatever format or structure you want, prioritising the good practices and avoiding bad practices, and then manually edit as needed

For example with documentation I direct it to:

*Goal:* Any code you generate must lower cognitive load and be backed by accurate, minimal, and maintainable documentation

1. *Different docs answer different questions* — don’t duplicate; *link* instead.

2. *Explain _why_, not just what.* Comments carry rationale, invariants, and tradeoffs.

3. *Accurate or absent.* If you can’t keep a doc truthful, remove it and add a TODO + owner.

4. *Progressive disclosure.* One‑screen summaries first; details behind links/sections.

5. *Examples beat prose.* Provide minimal, runnable examples close to the API.

6. *Consistency > cleverness.* Uniform structure, tone, and placement.

I also give it a note to refuse the prompt if it cannot satisfy these conditions

I don’t know why we pretend that “good code”, “good documentation”, “good tests” etc are the same for everybody

Of course code, docs, tests are all subjective and maybe even closer to an art than a science

But there's also objectively good habits, and objectively bad habits, and you can steer an LLM pretty well

Vibe engineering 10 months ago

LLMs make this even worse

Not in my experience

Better documentation, more test cases, and an NLP interface to query the code

Less cognitive load, more complete mental models

even bad developers can do that many times compared to better ones, because for example they mindlessly copy-paste StackOverflow answers whose half of the code is absolutely not necessary

Maybe LLMs, much like StackOverflow, make good devs better and bad devs worse

Like a force multiplier for good practices and bad practices

Vibe engineering 10 months ago

I think some people have more fun using LLM agents and generative AI tools

I think I'm one of them

The rate at which I can explore new paths, or revisit old ones with a new perspective, has _exploded_ and I love it

But then I'm the kind of person who could spend hours on Wikipedia going from one page to the next, so that might have something to do with it

There's just so much to learn, I'm in my element

(Though I use agents mostly in Ask mode, or I manually review every line of code in Agent mode and never commit anything I don't understand)

Vibe engineering 10 months ago

But happy to be corrected - is someone using these agents in their paid / professional / enterprise / team job?

Yes, and I find them quite useful

I don't see myself going back to the "Google + StackOverflow" approach I had used for 10 years prior (well, I can always fall back to it if necessary, but so far I haven't needed to)

My experience matches OP: my years of experience in manual coding complements the agent approach remarkably well

People have blindly followed GPS routes into lakes and rivers, but that should hardly be a point against GPS

With 8 billion people on the planet, you could write a "man bites dog" story about any invention popular enough

"You never read about a plane that did not crash"

I agree, and my flow is similar

I've made great use of AI by keeping my boundaries clear and my requirements tight, and by rigorously ensuring I understand _every_ line of code I commit

I believe software development will transition to a role closer to director/reviewer/editor, where knowledge of programming paradigms are just as important as now, but also where _communication_ skills separate the good devs from the _great_ devs

The difference between a 1x dev and a 10x dev in future will be the latter knows how to clearly and concisely describe a problem or a requirement to laymen, peers, and LLMs alike. Something I've seen many devs struggle with today (myself included)

If you write a screenplay (the idea), and direct actors to act it out according to your vision (the implementation), did you _create_ the film?

I think my answer would be "Does it matter?"

If it brings joy to you or others, who cares about the semantics of creation

I think it doesn't help that outrage generates the most engagement out of any emotion

So the algorithms that prioritise engagement reward outrage, and the social media users who want to be engaged with tend towards posting outrage

It leads to people sitting around being angry at something or someone for hours on end, multiple days a week (if not daily)

It doesn't lead to a healthy mind or a healthy society

I suspect many of the people on social media who use the word fascism could not define it

I think George Orwell was right when he said it has lost most of its meaning

https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/e...

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless

By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.

I don't think you should be killed for performances either

If you/society see the performance as beyond the pale, inciting violence then you should arrest the person and give them due process, or change the laws to reflect your beliefs