[joshuaissac]

AI-generated code is meant for the machine, or for the author/prompter. AI-generated text is typically meant for other people. I think that makes a meaningful difference.

[ripe]

Code can be viewed as design [1]. By this view, generating code using LLMs is a low-effort, low-value activity.

[1] Code as design, essays by Jack Reeves: https://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/reeves_design_...

[acedTrex]

Compiled code is meant for the machine, Written code is for other humans.

[gordonhart]

For better or worse, a lot of people seem to disagree with this, and believe that humans reading code is only necessary at the margins, similarly to debugging compiler outputs. Personally I don't believe we're there yet (and may not get there for some time) but this is where comments like GP's come from: human legibility is a secondary or tertiary concern and it's fine to give it up if the code meets its requirements and can be maintained effectively by LLMs.

[philipp-gayret]

Compiled natural language is meant for the machine, Written natural language is for other humans.

[jvanderbot]

This is precisely correct IMHO.

Communication is for humans. It's our super power. Delegating it loses all the context, all the trust-building potential from effort signals, and all the back-and-forth discussion in which ideas and bonds are formed.

[ginsider_oaks]

> Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

from the preface of SICP.

[bananaflag]

Well SICP was already considered here to be obsolete with the rise of the library-abstraction culture.

[everforward]

A lot of writing (maybe most) is almost the same. Code is a means of translating a process into semantics a computer understands. Most non-fiction writing is a means of translating information or an idea into semantics that allow other people to understand that information or idea.

I don’t think either is inherently bad because it’s AI, but it can definitely be bad if the AI is less good at encoding those ideas into their respective formats.

[askvictor]

At the same time, AI-generated code has to be correct and precise, whereas AI-generated text doesn't. There's often no 'correct solution' in AI-generated text.