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simonw 7 hours ago

"To test this system, we pointed it at an ambitious goal: building a web browser from scratch."

I shared my LLM predictions last week, and one of them was that by 2029 "Someone will build a new browser using mainly AI-assisted coding and it won’t even be a surprise" https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jan/8/llm-predictions-for-202... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVDhQMiAbR8&t=3913s

This project from Cursor is the second attempt I've seen at this now! The other is this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anthropic/comments/1q4xfm0/over_chr...

mrefish 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Time to raise the bar. By 2029 someone will build a new browser using mainly AI-assisted coding and the surprise is that it was designed to be used by pelicans.

bob1029 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The goal I am currently using for long horizon coding experiments is implementation of a PDF rasterizer given an ISO32000 specification document.

xenni 5 hours ago | parent [-]

We're almost there, I've been working on something similar using a markdown'd version of the ISO32000 spec

leptons 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Great, they can call it "artificial Internet Explorer", or aIE for short.

cheevly 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

2029? I have no idea why you would think this is so far off. More like Q2 2026.

xmprt 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You're either overestimating the capabilities of current AI models or underestimating the complexity of building a web browser. There are tons of tiny edge cases and standards to comply with where implementing one standard will break 3 others if not done carefully. AI can't do that right now.

rvz 5 hours ago | parent [-]

It's most likely both.

> There are tons of tiny edge cases and standards to comply with where implementing one standard will break 3 others if not done carefully. AI can't do that right now.

Firstly the CI is completely broken on every commit, all tests have failed and its and looking closely at the code, it is exactly what you expect for unmaintainable slop.

Having more lines of code is not a good measure of robust software, especially if it does not work.

johnfn an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You should make your own predictions, and then we can do a retrospective on who was right.

gordonhart 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Web browsers are insanely hard to get right, that’s why there are only ~3 decent implementations out there currently.

qingcharles 28 minutes ago | parent [-]

The one nice thing about web browsers is that they have a reasonably formalized specification set and a huge array of tests that can be used. So this makes them a fairly unique proposition ideally suited to AI construction.

mkoubaa 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah if you let them index chromium I'm sure it could do it next week. It just won't be original or interesting.

geeunits 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

dang 17 minutes ago | parent [-]

Please don't cross into personal attack on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html