<[email protected]> writes: > On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 09:56:33PM -0700, David Masterson wrote: >> Ihor Radchenko <[email protected]> writes: >> >> > David Masterson <[email protected]> writes: >> >> My goal was enlisting the LLM in helping keep the developer community >> >> healthy by better explaining its code/patches in ways that previous >> >> developeers never could (or could spend the time to) and, thus, teach >> >> those that come after. >> > >> > I did not get this paragraph. Could you elaborate? >> >> When I suggested requiring that code/patches created for free software >> by LLMs be done in the fashion of Literate Programming, I thought the >> following: > > The idea sounds interesting, but I fear "plain text" is where the > LLM is at home. It will tend to bullshit away the errors it has > bullshitted in the code. But it will do so very eloquently, as if > it "knew" what it's talking about.
That's a very good point that I hadn't considered. > The point is that the human reviewer will always be at a disadvantage > in terms of bandwidth (cf. Brandolini's law [1]). Hmm. > No, generative LLMs are not "telling the truth", they are just making > things up which "sound plausible". For an especially jarring, recent > example, see [2]. Wow! > If I ever let a generative LLM near my code, I'll make sure I have > a *very* robust test suite in place. And no, I wouldn't let a > generative LLM near that. Understandable > Cheers > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law > [2] > https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/mar/17/atrocity-ai-slop-verify-facts-iran-minab-graves -- David Masterson
