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AI ported SimCity to TypeScript in 4 days without reading the code

9 points| astlouis44 | 20 days ago |garryslist.org

10 comments

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fwlr|19 days ago

From the post:

“Think about what this means … the original SimCity ran on a Commodore 64. An empty Chrome tab takes more memory than that entire machine had. We’re not constrained by hardware anymore. We’re not even constrained by understanding what the code does … codebases will 10-100x in size because AI … endless bugs … the question is whether you’re building with it or explaining why you’re not.”

Looking through the eyes of an AI champion, I see a world where the first execution of any given idea, the first product to hit the market for any given need, is guaranteed to be AI-generated - with the “10-100x size” codebase, the corresponding (and often superlinear) decrease in performance, and the attendant “endless bugs”.

chrisjj|19 days ago

> We’re not even constrained by understanding what the code does …

Key point. We can release this game, have it breach your browser, pwn your machine and rat you to ICE.

hulitu|19 days ago

> AI ported SimCity to TypeScript in 4 days without reading the code

And we are expected to believe this with just a picture.

Is the guy preparing for Mid-term elections and looking at ways to better lie its voters ?

chrisjj|19 days ago

> And we are expected to believe this with just a picture.

Some people are. I doubt we are.

chrisjj|20 days ago

I've read the article and found nothing to substantiate "without reading the code".

But then, I suspect the article is AI slop. Take this:

> Christopher Ehrlich just did something that would have taken a team of engineers months. He pointed OpenAI’s 5.3-codex at the entire SimCity (1989) C codebase and let it run.

No, that wouldn't have taken engineers months.

> Four days later: the game works in the browser.

So someome used a (very slow) program to translate a program.

> No code reading.

What?? Osmosis, then?

skysanctuary|19 days ago

It's a bad title.

I think he meant Christopher didn't read any of the original code himself. The AI certainly ingested it.

Though, there is this part:

"Ehrlich wrote a bridge that could call the original C code, then ran property-based tests asserting his TypeScript port performed identically."

So, he must have had some kind of awareness of how the code worked.

astlouis44|20 days ago

The article was written by the CEO of Ycombinator, funnily enough.