Re:Software 2.0
by xp84 on Tuesday February 21, 2023 @12:29PM
(#34883909)
I'd argue that it's a solution to the problem that programmers are expensive AND only a fraction can be counted on to produce 100% reliable code anyway.
While it's possible for a highly-skilled, highly-professional developer can both write code that will solve a given problem 100% correctly AND write tests that will prove that it solves them for the entire domain, in practice most developers fall short on both counts. Every time you interact with a date or phone number field that chastises you for your use or non-use of punctuation, you know this.
So, for many use cases, it's possible imperfect programmers will be replaced with neural networks that are 95% accurate, perhaps with a differently-trained one checking the work of the first one.
While it's possible for a highly-skilled, highly-professional developer can both write code that will solve a given problem 100% correctly AND write tests that will prove that it solves them for the entire domain, in practice most developers fall short on both counts. Every time you interact with a date or phone number field that chastises you for your use or non-use of punctuation, you know this.
So, for many use cases, it's possible imperfect programmers will be replaced with neural networks that are 95% accurate, perhaps with a differently-trained one checking the work of the first one.