And people have been saying this exact thing for years now. Someone said this very thing two years ago. And we're still at the "maintenance dead end" stage. So let me flip it back on you: how many years are we going to pour an obscene amount of resources into this thing that is always going to be able to clean up its own messes "in a year or two" before we realize its a dead end (at best) and we need to be using those resources elsewhere? And, similarly, what happens to you when the SOTA AI in two years can't clean up the code it wrote for you two years ago, but people are depending on it and your still on the hook for maintaining it?
Respectfully, I asked first. ;)
> before we realize its a dead end (at best)
You've declared the future, which doesn't leave much room for a conversation. So, cheers!
I just flipped your own rhetorical devices back on you. If you don't think they left much room for conversation, then that's a chance for you to look at yourself in the mirror and examine your own behavior ;)
To honestly answer your question in good faith, it's not about years, it's about results. I don't see AI improving exponentially or even linearly. I see it's capability gains logarithmically flattening out. And it's still a ways out from actually writing maintainable code.
I honestly don't believe we are going to reach this point you are saying is "a few years out" with the current architecture. We're throwing an obscene amount of resources at it and we're just not getting there.
And all of this is just about the practical "does it work?" question. We're not even touching on the ethical, environmental, resource use, or societal impact questions at work here.
I gave up on this recently. It achieved the goal now, and in a year or two, when you actually want to add whatever feature, the SOTA AI will probably be able to clean it up as it does so. What does "maintain" even mean anymore?
If you don't agree, how many years into the future do we need until you would agree?