[blks]

I don’t think it’s correct to claim that AI generated code is just next level of abstraction.

All previously mentioned levels produce deterministic results. Same input, same output.

AI-generation is not deterministic. It’s not even predictable. And example of big software companies clearly show what mass adoption of AI tools will look like in terms of software quality. I dread if using AI will ever be an expectation, this will be level of enshittification never before imagined.

[tux1968]

You're not wrong. But your same objection was made against compilers. That they are opaque, have differences from one to another, and can introduce bugs, they're not actually deterministic if you upgrade the compiler, etc. They separate the programmer from the code the computer eventually executes.

In any case, clinging to the fact that this technology is different in some ways, continues to ignore the many ways it's exactly the same. People continue to cling to what they know, and find ways to argue against what's new. But the writing is plainly on the wall, regardless of how much we struggle to emotionally separate ourselves from it.

[igravious]

They may not be wrong per se but that argument is essentially a strawman argument.

If these tools are non-deterministic then how did someone at Anthropic spend the equivalent of $20,000 of Anthropic compute and end up with a C compiler that can compile the Linux kernel (one of the largest bodies of C code out there).

There is clearly something that completely missies the point about the but-muh-non-determinism argument. See my direct response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46936586

You'll notice this objection comes up each time a "OpenClaw changed my life" or conversely "Agentic Coding ain't it fam" article swings by.

[raw_anon_1111]

No one is using Gen AI to determine if a number is odd at runtime - they are testing the deterministic code that it generates

[igravious]

People on here keep trotting out this "AI-generation is not deterministic." (more properly speaking, non-deterministic) argument on here …

And my retort to you (and them) is, "Oh yeah, and so?"

What about me asking Claude Code to generate a factorial function in C or Python or Rust or insert-your-language-of-choice-here is non-deterministic?

If you're referring to the fact that for a given input LLMs (or whatever) because of certain controls (temperature controls?) don't give the same outputs for the same inputs. Yeah, okay. If we're talking about conversational language that makes a meaningful difference to whether it sounds like an ELISA robots or more like a human. But ask an LLM to output some code then that code has to adhere to functional requirements independent of, muh, non-determinism. And what's to stop you (if you're so sceptical/scared) writing test-cases to make sure the code that is magically whisked out of nowhere performs as you so desire? Nothing. What's to stop you getting one agent to write the test-suite (and for you to review to the test-suite for correctness and for another agent to the write the code and self-correct based off of checking its code against the test-suite? Nothing

I would advise anyone encountering this but-they're-non-deterministic argument on HN to really think through what the proponents of this argument are implying. I mean, aren't humans non-deterministic. (I should have thought so.) So how is it, <extra sarcasm mode activated>pray tell</extra sarcasm mode activated> humans manage to write correct software in the first place?

[swid]

I personally have jested many times I picked my career because the logical soundness of programming is comforting to me. A one is always a one; you don’t measure it and find it off by some error; you can’t measure it a second time and get a different value.

I’ve also said code is prose for me.

I am not some autistic programmer either, even if these statements out of context make me sound like one.

The non-determinism has nothing to do with temperature; it has everything to do with that fact that even at temp equal to zero, a single meaningless change can produce a different result. It has to do with there being no way to predict what will happen when you run the model on your prompt.

Coding with LLMs is not the same job. How could it be the same to write a mathematical proof compared to asking an LLM to generate that proof for you? These are different tasks that use different parts of the brain.

[blks]

Non-determinism means here that with same inputs, same prompts we are not guaranteed the same results.

This turns writing code this way into a tedious procedure that may not even work exactly the same way every time.

You should ask yourself, too: if you already have to spend so much time to prepare various tests (can’t trust LLM to make them, or have to describe it so many details), so much time describing what you need, then hand holding the model, all to get mediocre code that you may not be able to reproduce with the same model tomorrow - what’s the point?