On Sat, Feb 5, 2022 at 6:24 PM Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
> > AlphaCode is not capable of reading code. It's a clever version of monkeys > typing on typewriters until they bang out a Shakespeare play. Still counts > as AI, but cannot be said to understand code. > > > What does it mean "to read code"? It can execute code, from github > apparently so it must read code well enough to execute it. What more does > it need to read? You say it cannot be said to understand code. Can you > specify what would show it understands the code? > > The github code is used to train a neural network that maps natural language to code, and this neural network is used to generate candidate solutions based on the natural language of the problem description. If you want to say that represents a form of understanding, ok. But I would still push back that it could "read code". > I think you mean it tells you story about how this part to does that and > this other part does something else, etc. But that's just catering to your > weak human brain that can't just "see" that the code solves the problem. > The problem is that there is no species independent meaning of "understand" > except "make it work". AlphaCode doesn't understand code like you do, > because it doesn't think like you do and doesn't have the context you do. > There are times when I can read code and understand it, and times when I can't. When I can understand it, I can reason about what it's doing; I can find and fix bugs in it; I can potentially optimize it. I can see if this code is useful for other situations. And yes, I can tell you a story about what it's doing. AlphaCode is doing none of those things, because it's not built to. > > Brent > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAMy3ZA82SS%2B6A0jPd%3Dm08KP4SGOMrkpx%3DKTjYx560dtkjkwi5w%40mail.gmail.com.
