Not trying to challenge you, and I'd sincerely love to read your response. People said similar things about previous gen-AI tool announcements that proved over time to be overstated. Is there some reason to put more weight in "what people on HN said" in this case, compared to previous situations?
This is where list comprehensions came from! Like we have in modern Python, Haskell and more. SETL was the first language to use comprehensions in its core syntax.
I was happy to see it supports a fairly recent Python3 at all now, like Py3.5 or what is it that ships with most of the expected stuff? Works for me, I'd target something like that for compatibility anyway
There is another big difference: natural languages have ambiguity baked in. If a programming language has any ambiguity in how it can be parsed, that is rightly considered a major bug. But it's almost a feature of natural languages, allowing poetry, innuendo, and other nuanced forms of communication.
There are constructed languages that preserve the expressivity of natural human languages but without the implicit ambiguity, though; most notably, Loglan and its successor Lojban. If you read Golden Age sci-fi, Loglan sometimes shows up there specifically in this role - e.g. "Moon is a Harsh Mistress":
> By then Mike had voder-vocoder circuits supplementing his read-outs, print-outs, and decision-action boxes, and could understand not only classic programming but also Loglan and English, and could accept other languages and was doing technical translating—and reading endlessly. But in giving him instructions was safer to use Loglan. If you spoke English, results might be whimsical; multi-valued nature of English gave option circuits too much leeway.
For those unfamiliar with it, it's not that Lojban is perfectly unambiguous. It's that its design strives to ensure that ambiguity is always deliberate by making it explicit.
The obvious problem with all this is that Lojban is a very niche language with a fairly small corpus, so training AI on it is a challenge (although it's interesting to note that existing SOTA models can read and write it even so, better than many obscure human languages). However, Lojban has the nice property of being fully machine parseable - it has a PEG grammar. And, once you parse it, you can use dictionaries to construct a semantic tree of any Lojban snippet.
When it comes to LLMs, this property can be used in two ways. First, you can use structured output driven by the grammar to constrain the model to output only syntactically valid Lojban at any point. Second, you can parse the fully constructed text once it has been generated, add semantic annotations, and feed the tree back into the model to have it double-check that what it ended up writing means exactly what it wanted to mean.
With SOTA models, in fact, you don't even need the structured output - you can just give them parser as a tool and have them iterate. I did that with Claude and had it produce Lojban translations that, while not perfect, were very good. So I think that it might be possible, in principle, to generate Lojban training data out of other languages, and I can't help but wonder what would happen if you trained a model primarily on that; I suspect it would reduce hallucinations and generally improve metrics, but this is just a gut feel. Unfortunately this is a hypothesis that requires a lot of $$$ to properly test...
The nature of programming might have to shift to embrace the material property of LLM. It could become a more interpretative, social, and discovery-based activity. Maybe that's what "vibe coding" would eventually become.
> The nature of programming might have to shift to embrace the material property of LLM. It could become a more interpretative, social, and discovery-based activity. Maybe that's what "vibe coding" would eventually become
This sounds like an unmaintainable, tech debt nightmare outcome to me
C has a lot of ambiguity in how it is parsed ("undefined behavior") but people usually view that as a benefit because it allows compilers more freedom to dictate an implementation.
It's not the same. There is an explosion in expressiveness/ambiguity in the step from high-level programming languages to natural languages. This "explosion" doesn't exist in the steps between machine code and assembly, or assembly and a high-level programming language.
It is, for example, possible to formally verify or do 100% exhaustive testing as you go lower down the stack. I can't imagine this would be possible between NLs and PLs.
I used to regularly go to my local Taco Bell, but stopped going after they rolled this out. Not mad at them or anything, it was just sometimes a frustrating experience, and overall I was not sure how I felt about it: it's more impersonal, I wondered if it meant less jobs available in my local community, etc. So without making a conscious decision, I just stopped going.
I wonder how this has affected sales and net profit at their locations using AI in this way.
Modern surveillance feels pretty active too me. It's embedded into damn near every single facet of my life. I can't escape it and I feel the chilling effect, I feel the oppression. I'd rather take the automated agents.
>"It’s just so inconspicuous that no one thinks about it"
The leading suppliers and vendors that distribute surveillance technology put billions into R&D to make sure of this. It's another of many dark industries.
There may be something I do not understand about LLMs. But it seems it is more correct to say LLMs are chaotic - in the mathematical sense of sensitive dependence on initial conditions.
The only actual nondeterminism is deliberately injected. E.g. the temperature parameter. Without that, it is deterministic but chaotic. This is the case both in training LLMs, and in using the trained models.
If I missed something, someone point it out please.
If that is the case, then you didn't read or comprehend what was actually said, and no one can tailor a response to people who can't read and comprehend.
There are important distinctions, its beyond the scope for me to try and guess at where that failure of comprehension might be for an individual such as yourself.
Basic reading comprehension would note:
Properties are not individual inputs, they apply to the whole system as a relationship between input and output, individual inputs cannot define properties.
"Chaos" has a very rigorous definition (changes in small inputs lead to large changes in outputs).
"Injection of non-determinism" is only correct if it included a reference that determinism is built-in to all computation which is not a common understanding. Without that reference, the context improperly includes an indeterminable indirection resulting in fallacy.
The two are unrelated and independent to the context of the conversation or determinism, and so defining such understanding in those terms would result in fallacy (by improper isolation), delusion, or hallucination.
These are fundamental errors in reasoning and by extension understanding.
The correct, on firm foundations understanding, was provided. It is on the individual without knowledge to come into a conversation with the bare minimum requirements for comprehension based in rational thought and practice.
Edit: No amount of down-voting will change the truth of this, though I understand why someone would want useful knowledge to be hidden.
You should honestly re-evaluate and re-calibrate your measure of tone in moderation and relation to everything else.
Terse is not harsh or rude, its condensed, which carries a fine distinction.
Most business people and professionals speak this way; especially when it comes down to the objective facts which are not in question.
The facts and the effort towards minimization of cost for all parties in a communication conveys a overall respect, its extra effort I didn't have to provide which gets towards a specific goal as a whole for everyone involved in the communication's benefit.
If there is a mistake made on either parties part, its not harsh or rude to point out the mistake in such unambiguous format, or where that's not possible due to a deficit to point out why generally (such as a dependency not met).
Elaborating in great detail repeated or otherwise would be condescending, on the opposite side personal haranguing would be coercive imposition of cost. Lying by omission or commission would be the worst.
You'll note I did neither of these things, which is the socially acceptable way to handle it, and does not merit actions that were done. I pointed out the errors in comprehension, in the most minimal unambiguous way possible.
The only generally understood acceptable middle-ground in those two extremes is terse and to the point, and when you eliminate both sides and the middle ground, you classify all communication as harsh and rude which is an absurdity.
People cannot read other people's minds, and the point of communication is to convey meaning in a way the parties involved can use it towards their own ends beneficially if they choose, without unnecessary third-party interference.
The reflected appraisal is beneficial to all people involved.
> Terse is not harsh or rude, its condensed, which carries a fine distinction.
Ironically, I suspect that terseness would improve your communication here. The significant repetitiveness and length of your posts is both contributing to others’ confusion and giving you more opportunities to be rude.
I’m commenting as opposed to downvoting and moving on because I do think there’s some interesting substance in what you wrote, but it needs an edit pass—for politeness/assumption of positive regard as well as brevity—before it’s in any way useful communication.
> but it needs an edit pass - for politeness/assumption of positive regard.
We will have to disagree.
I have appreciated that, though the post isn't repetitive, each point has a fine and different nuance its meant to convey, and a single tie-in back to the overarching point/theme at the end signaling the completion of the idea; this is a very common writing style/structure when conveying information.
The problem with doing as you mention is that any further reduction would introduce ambiguity, and fragmentary thought, through improper generalization/isolation. These would then be latched upon towards subtle harassment attacks, like nullification, which have become all too popular on all platforms today.
You'll notice the people I responded to don't provide reflected appraisal, as someone earnest would, and that is needed to write or tailor responses towards a common audience level, or bridge the comprehensive gap. This is a failing on their part, not mine.
They are in all likelihood either bots seeking to remove useful information, or are doing so purposefully following a critical theory mindset which are a particularly destructive engrammed set of trauma loops, though a rare few manage to crawl and pull themselves out of it towards actual reasoning when the mistakes in reasoning are brought to light.
Politeness and positive regard aren't what you seem to think. Washington wrote about politeness, and aside from the dated material, it still holds up today.
You will find much in his 110 Rules of Civility which constitute politeness which are present in my writings.
The 'disarmed politeness' you seem to want is based in an impossibility when you strip all the indirection and contradiction away. The brevity you seem to want ignores the fine nuance/comprehensiveness needed to be polite, and the resulting outcome of doing either naturally leads to "lies to children", and the imposition of harassment for volunteering useful information, something I won't do disarmed. An impasse.
Charity is provided and given solely on the terms of the giver, and not at the barrel of a gun, blackmail, or inherent threat thereof and volunteers stop giving when it costs them more than they were willing to give, and its an individual decision.
I'll have to remember Mathew 7:6 when next I consider providing such charity, though I'm glad and appreciate you letting me know you found the substance useful. So few people do this and it is appreciated.
Zoom has been driving me nuts with this lately. I have to reauth with OTP 3 times a day, while logging in on the same computer on the same LAN with the same browser. I spend over $1500 a year with Zoom, and this issue is seriously making me think about how I can migrate to something else.
I am sure you are an industrious hard worker. And to do this successfully, you need to expand your determination, resourcefulness, and sheer visceral grit far beyond what you have ever done before.
It is not easy. AND, you can do it, if you decide to.
Allow me to advise you: for each of these three options, write out all steps in the process of building an MVP through that method. As much detail as you can. Get to the point where you can imagine being successful using ANY of them. Then you will have clarity to choose.
And then: follow it to the end, regardless of what it asks of you. Then you will change your HN username. You will see yourself as a true entrepreneur; not because you want to be one, but because you KNOW you are.
Best of luck building your MVP. Keep at it, and you will be successful.
(Source: I am an entrepreneur who bootstrapped my company to 6-figs revenue while retaining 100% equity, expecting to break 7-figs in 2022, and believe I will reach 8 figs by 2023 or earlier.)
"expecting to break 7-figs in 2022, and believe I will reach 8 figs by 2023 or earlier"
That will be something and would love to learn why/how you think you can achieve that being bootstrapped. Going from 1M to 10M in 1 year being bootstrapped has to be something special. Not doubting but just wondering how you believe you can achieve this without funding/extra money ?
Different business models have different capitalization requirements; some (e.g. a grocery store chain) are nearly impossible to rapidly scale without massive outside investment.
If a business model has (a) a high enough gross margin, and (b) good-enough intrinsic economies of scale, then by the time it reaches several $100k in revenue, there is a good chance it will be crystal clear how to scale up 7 and then 8 figures. And you will be sitting on a big enough pile of cash that there is no need to take outside funding to implement that. Many B2B SaaS business models in particular can find themselves in this excellent situation.
You can still take outside funding; after all, a growing business at that point is attractive to outside investors. But then it becomes a choice about growth rate in exchange for keeping equity and strategic control. I decided in my case it was completely unnecessary, so I am not doing it.
Not trying to challenge you, and I'd sincerely love to read your response. People said similar things about previous gen-AI tool announcements that proved over time to be overstated. Is there some reason to put more weight in "what people on HN said" in this case, compared to previous situations?