I'm wondering: do you genuinely not understand how compilers work at all or is there some deeper point to your AI/compiler comparison that I'm just not getting?

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9rx 3 days ago | parent [-]

My understanding is that compilers work just like originally described. I type out what I want. I feed that into a compiler. It takes that input of what I want and generates code.

Is that not your understanding of how compilers work? If a compiler does not work like that, what do you think a complier does instead?

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IceDane 3 days ago | parent [-]

A compiler does so deterministically and there is no AI involved.

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9rx 3 days ago | parent [-]

A compiler can be deterministic in some cases, but not necessarily so. A compiler for natural language cannot be deterministic, for example. It seems you're confusing what a compiler is with implementation details.

Let's get this topic back on track. What is it that you think a compiler does if not take in what you typed out for what you want and use that to generate code?

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IceDane 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I've written more than one compiler, so I definitely understand how compilers work.

It seems you're trying to call anything that transforms one thing into another a compiler. We all know what a compiler is and what it does (except maybe you? It's not clear to me) so I genuinely don't understand why you're trying to overload this terminology further so that you can call LLMs compilers. They are obviously and fundamentally different things even if an LLM can do its best to pretend to be one. Is a natural language translation program a compiler?

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9rx 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Is a natural language translation program a compiler?

We have always agreed that a natural language compiler is theoretically possible. Is a natural language translation program the same as a natural language compiler, or do you see some kind of difference? If so, what is the difference?

	▲	gitremote 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> We have always agreed that a natural language compiler is theoretically possible. No. Nobody here except you agrees with this. The distinction between natural languages and formal languages exists for a reason.
	▲	kkapelon 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> We have always agreed that a natural language compiler is theoretically possible citation? source? Who is we?

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bonaldi 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This doesn't feel like good-faith. There are leagues of difference between "what you typed out" when that's in a highly structured compiler-specific codified syntax *expressly designed* as the input to a compiler that produces computer programs, and "what you typed out" when that's an English-language prompt, sometimes vague and extremely high-level

That difference - and the assumed delta in difficulty, training and therefore cost involved - is why the latter case is newsworthy.

	▲	9rx 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> This doesn't feel like good-faith. When has a semantic "argument" ever felt like good faith? All it can ever be is someone choosing what a term means to them and try to beat down others until they adopt the same meaning. Which will never happen because nobody really cares. They are hilarious, but pointless. You know that going into it.