undefined

points

[-]

Less like a carpenter using a hammer and more like a Sorcerer's Apprentice using brooms. Your give them instructions, and they mostly take it from there. Hopefully your understanding of those instructions aligns with theirs, and hopefully when it starts to diverge you'll know how to course correct.

by dag1001 hours ago|

prev|

[-]

AI is fundamentally different to other tools because it directs itself for the most part (i.e. has agency) - the user typically only provides direction, that too usually vague direction. It's like calling a vending machine a tool for producing soda.

by LoganDark2 hours ago|

prev|

[-]

To be honest, you make a good point. The problem is generally that AI erases many of the tells of a quality work, because even bad works tend to carry the exact same level of language. When I see that the entire description was AI-generated, I wonder how many of these points were actually inspected by a real person or just hallucinated by the model. Surely there is some quality to it, but I feel like I would need more qualifiers than "finished" to know if it's worth trying, you know?

It's not exactly analogous to a hammer, even though I agree that it is a tool. If a carpenter got the framing all wrong, the hammer wouldn't fix it. If a prompter got the instructions all wrong, or didn't supervise enough, or didn't verify enough, the AI still makes something that appears to pass initial muster.

by jasonvorhe1 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

I'm confused.

The project is quite transparent about it, saying it was "proudly vibecoded". The entire "not sure what was hallucinated" narrative seems stuck in 2025.

Some friends of mine play old games that are on community life support with official servers having been shutdown years ago. I sometimes support them when they have some tech issues and whenever I stumble upon documentation of these projects being spread over forums and vintage 2010 era gaming portal websites I'm glad that we have AI now.

by LoganDark1 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

> The project is quite transparent about it, saying it was "proudly vibecoded".

Oh, I didn't spot that in the submission, is it behind links? I read a few paragraphs of the description and left because it didn't seem organic. My bad.

> whenever I stumble upon documentation of these projects being spread over forums and vintage 2010 era gaming portal websites I'm glad that we have AI now.

I love AI! The submission title just gave me hopes and the non-organic feel was a bit of a bummer. But nothing against the project itself.

by stronglikedan1 hours ago|

parent|

prev|

[-]

That's a good point about the carpenter getting the framing wrong. If that happened, it would be caught during the required inspection (by someone else), and the construction would be halted until it was fixed.

The issue with using AI as a tool to build software is that the inspection step is not required. I'm not sure an AI-generated description is a sign of bad inspection processes. I think maybe in the case of a game mod, the description is not as important as it would be for some software that someone is selling.

I guess my point is that quality can't be assessed merely by whether something was built with AI. A trustworthy team will have carried out inspections along the way. The question is how can we know that?

by darkwater1 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

> The issue with using AI as a tool to build software is that the inspection step is not required. I

Wrong. Lack of inspection is a process issue symptom, not an AI issue symptom.

by 1 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

deleted

by LoganDark1 hours ago|

parent|

prev|

[-]

Oh, I wasn't saying AI made the quality bad! I was just saying the title inspires some confidence that AI could bring into question. ("Modders" are typically quite dedicated and passionate, so if it were a fully organic effort, you'd know it'd be good!) Of course, you can always just audit the code yourself to establish whatever you might need, I never meant to imply otherwise! I just think it's better to know about the use of AI when it happens.

by sublinear2 hours ago|

parent|

prev|

[-]

> even bad works tend to carry the exact same level of language

Maybe this is one of the better times to encourage "literate programming" all over again?

If the majority of the source is detailed prose comments instead of "code", you would be able to tell. I think you're correct that this is an information problem (like the law of small numbers).

I strongly believe that if a new project is interesting enough for someone to be reading the source of a literate codebase, the prose that goes with it will be distinct enough that the first publisher would necessarily have to be human.

by fresh_free2 hours ago|

parent|

prev|

[-]

never say sorry. always double down

by LoganDark1 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

I have the neurodivergence or mental illness that makes me overexplain everything :D

(Technically not "makes", but I always feel like it's better for both sides to understand each other more completely in order to have a more fruitful debate)