Post #3166119
2025-08-12 06:26 UTC
Code is a repository of determinism. That is its value. While it is not necessarily perfect, it has a consistency, comprehensibility and level of correctness that is inherent to its design.
By design, LLMs do not have this and are, therefore, unsuitable as a direct replacement. That does not mean they cannot be useful. It does not mean they cannot be used to generate code. But it does mean they cannot be used to replace code.
Replies (1)
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@kevlin@mastodon.social 2025-08-12 06:33
Another reason we know that LLMs cannot be used to reliably replace code is far simpler: the LLM companies have told us that it can't. They repeatedly say that the field is constantly changing and that how prompts work and the quality of the output is changing. In other words, their business proposition is that, leaving aside the nature of LLMs themselves, the LLM business is based on change, not consistency. They are guaranteeing code generated in future will differ from code generated now.