There is an interesting dichotomy where we express an uncanny-valley revulsion to AI-generated text, art, video and music; yet we seemingly go with the AI-generated code.

Personally I have an uneasiness with it and are correspondingly cautious. Often after a review and edits it loses that "smell". I kind-of felt the same about NPM and package managers for a long time before using it became obligatory (for lack of a better word).

Are we conditioned to use other people's code unthinkingly, or is it something else?

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fluoridation 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It's because code isn't a way to communicate ideas, it's a way to specify behavior. Text, drawings, video, and music are means for brains to connect with each other. When you read or view or listen to something generated you're not connecting with any other brain. No idea has been transmitted to you. The feeling is analogous to speaking on the phone and only realizing several minutes later that the call was dropped. It's a feeling that combines betrayal, being made to waste time, and alienation.

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dwd 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I tend to disagree that code can't be a way to communicate an idea. Sure, I might struggle to edict an emotion in the reader (excluding confusion or frustration) but I feel it is a way to describe ideas, model constructs and processes, etc.

With AI-generated text where there is this disconnect between the audience and the prompter who has an idea but not the skill to express it. Would you say reading an English translation of Dostoevsky is similar because you're connecting with the interpreter rather than the actual author? Or something as simple as an Asterix comic where the English translation is rarely literal but uses different English plays on words?

	▲	fluoridation an hour ago \| parent [-]
		>I tend to disagree that code can't be a way to communicate an idea. I wouldn't go as far as can't, but in general it won't be, and if any ideas are indeed communicated, they will be impersonal. >With AI-generated text where there is this disconnect between the audience and the prompter who has an idea but not the skill to express it. Would you say reading an English translation of Dostoevsky is similar because you're connecting with the interpreter rather than the actual author? Or something as simple as an Asterix comic where the English translation is rarely literal but uses different English plays on words? I can think of a better example. In comic circles there's the rewrite, which is when an editor isn't fluent in the original language, and so instead of actually translating, they just rewrite all the dialogue to something that matches the action. People (generally) hate rewrites. Unknowingly reading a rewrite provokes a similar feeling of betrayal that unknowingly reading LLM output provokes.

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rustystump 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, code is a way of communicating ideas, or more correctly information. All languages convey information. All languages convey ideas.

	▲	fluoridation 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Did you read past the first sentence? The kind of information that a piece of code transmits is fundamentally different from that which is transmitted by a sentence or a song.