I think you are misunderstanding the term "deterministic". Running on deterministic hardware does not mean an algorithm is deterministic.

Create a program that reads from /dev/random (not urandom). It's not determistic.

Fair, although you can absolutely use local LLMs in a deterministic way (by using fixed seeds for the random number generation), and my point is that even if you did that with your LLM, it wouldn't change the feeling someone has about not being able to reason out what was happening.

In other words, it isn't the random number part of LLMs that make them seem like a black box and unpredictable, but rather the complexity of the underlying model. Even if you ran it in a deterministic way, I don't think people would suddenly feel more confident about the outputted code.

Said another way, compilers are a translation of existing formal code. Compilers don't add features, they don't create algorithms (unrolling, etc., notwithstanding), they are another expression of the same encoded solution.

LLMs are nothing like that

LLMs are just translating text into output, too, and are running on deterministic computers like every other bit of code we run. They aren't magic.

It is just the scope that makes it appear non-deterministic to a human looking at it, and it is large enough to be impossible for a human to follow the entire deterministic chain, but that doesn't mean it isn't in the end a function that translates input data into output data in a deterministic way.

just text !== syntactically correct code that solves a defined problem

There is a world of difference between translation and generation. It's even in the name: generative AI. I didn't say anything about magic.

> is just the scope that makes it appear non-deterministic to a human looking at it

They are non-deterministic due to both the GPUs they run on and some additional randomness intentionally added through the "temperature" parameter.

> arrested development is the dark side of strengths in the sense of Positive Psychology

I see some correlation here to hesitancy in adopting LLMs for coding.

Explain.

to hazard a guess: the better your coding model is, the less you have to assess your fundamentals, and thereby suffer arrested development.

I was thinking of our natural reluctance to adopt newer and better tools because of our comfort and expertise with old ones.

I know I should have experimented with LLMs sooner, but leaned into my instinctive "VIM has gotten me this far" attitude.

Right, it doesn't help pay the bills to be right in the long run if you are discarded in the present.

There exists some fact about the true value of AI, and then there is the capitalist reaction to new things. I'm more wary of a lemming effect by leaders than I am of AI itself.

Which is pretty much true of everything I guess. It's the short sighted and greedy humans that screw us over, not the tech itself.

I understand there are probabilities and shortcuts in weather forecasts.... but what part is non-deterministic?

what? I don't see ads unless the creator themselves are doing it, and even then it's two clicks on the right arrow button and we move on

Sponsorblock is a god send. It automates all that

I'm with you, I enjoy the craftsmanship of my trade. I'm not relieved that I may not have to do it in the future, I'm bummed that it feels like something I'm good at, and is/was worth something, is being taken away.

I realize how lucky I am to even have a job that I thoroughly enjoy, do well, and get paid well for. So I'm not going to say "It's not fair!", but ... I'm bummed.

In my experience, it's xml-ish and HTML can be described the same way. The relevant strength here is the forgiving nature of parsing tag-delimited content. The XML is usually relatively shallow, and doesn't take advantage of any true XML features, that I know of.

counterpoint, and I know it's not apples to apples, but have you ever used an old terminal app? Buffering the key strokes and then applying them _once_ the menu was ready was awesome. You could move so fast through an app

Could often do this in ye olde Macintosh System Software, too. Could fill the event queue with events, and rely on the program to intelligently clear the queue just before an incompatible UI change.

I do both of those, it's a constant battle in my own head. I'm always reminding myself that it's ok to make music just for my own enjoyment, and that don't need a potential monetary angle for some hobby.

I'm not justifying this mindset, which preceded LinkedIn. I don't like it.