In this essay, Carson Gross argues that as AI makes code cheap to produce, understanding code becomes the expensive and scarce resource. He warns of the complexity that LLM code can generate and proposes the subtractive, constraining engineer as the discipline needed to keep systems comprehensible & stable.
  • PushButton@lemmy.world
    1·
    58 minutes ago

    TL;DR:

    He proposes to code review the LLM generated code.

    Summary:

    AI generates code fast with decent quality, but the code is only part of the whole solution/system.

    The LLM is a dangerous tool if left alone, because left alone means no one understands the system. The LLM will just generate on top of this “decent” quality code, which doesn’t seem of “decent quality” anymore the further we read this prose.

    This adds “complexity”, to a point where the system collapses.

    His solution is to review what the LLM is suggesting instead of YOLO.

  • seadoo@lemmy.world
    91·
    2 days ago

    Problem is that to be able to decide whether or not to say no to the code you need to be able to reason about it, and to reason about it you need to wrap your head around at least parts of the output of the prolific, not-afraid-of-complexity AI output.

    And that takes time! maybe enough time to defeat the alleged benefit of having it written for you in some cases

    • draco_aeneus@mander.xyz
      4·
      14 hours ago

      Within the context of the article, I think it is completely fair to say that creating code is cheap compared to the cost of understanding that code.