I think something like an x86 -> ARM change is perfect example of something where LLM assisted coding shines. lots of busywork (i.e. smaller tasks that don't require lots of context of the other existing tasks), nothing totally novel to do (they don't have to write another borg or spanner), easy to verify, and 'translation'. LLMs are quite good at human language translation, why should they be bad at translating from one inline assembly language to another?
replyYeah. Lots of busywork where if you had to assign it to a human you would need to find someone with deep technical expertise plus inordinate, unflagging attention to detail. You couldn’t pass it off to a batch of summer interns. It would have needed to be done by an engineer with some real experience. And there is no way in the world you could hire enough to do it, for almost any money.
replyYou've missed the subtlety here.
replyLLMs don't have attention to detail.
This project had extremely comprehensive, easily verifiable, tests.
So the LLM could be as sloppy as they usually arez they just had to keep redoing their work until the code actually worked.
Who wrote the tests?
replyThe meat wrote the tests. As I've been telling you, they're made out of meat.
replyExactly, if the engineers know where to look for the solution in open-source code and point the AI there, it will get them there. Even if the language or the tech stack are different, AI is excellent at finding the seams, those spots where a feature connects to the underlying tech stack, and figuring out how the feature is really implemented, and bringing that over.
reply> Google would have let that sit forever because the labor economics of the problem were backwards.
replyThis has been how all previous innovations that made software easier to make turned out.
People found more and more uses for software and that does seem to be playing out again.
I really don't think we're living in a "linearly interpolate from past behavior" kinda situation.
replyhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2510.14928
Just read some of that. It's not long. This IS NOT the past telescoping into the future. Some new shit is afoot.