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alightsoul parent
why does vibe coding still involve any code at all? why can't an AI directly control the registers of a computer processor and graphics card, controlling a computer directly? why can't it draw on the screen directly, connected directly to the rows and columns of an LCD screen? what if an AI agent was implemented in hardware, with a processor for AI, a normal computer processor for logic, and a processor that correlates UI elements to touches on the screen? and a network card, some RAM for temporary stuff like UI elements and some persistent storage for vectors that represent UI elements and past converstations

flumpcakes
I'm not sure this makes sense as a question. Registers are 'controlled' by running code for a given state. An AI can write code that changes registers, as all code does in operation. An AI can't directly 'control registers' in any other way, just as you or I can't.
alightsoul OP
I would like to make an AI agent that directly interfaces with a processor by setting bits in a processor register, thus eliminating the need for even assembly code or any kind of code. The only software you would ever need would be the AI.
flumpcakes
This makes no sense at all. You can't set registers without assembly code. If you could set registers without assembly code then it would be pointless as the registers wouldn't be 'running' against anything.
shakna
That's called a JIT compiler. And ignoring how bad an idea blending those two... It wouldn't be that difficult a task.

The hardest parts of a jit is the safety aspect. And AI already violates most of that.

alightsoul OP
The safety part will probably be either solved or a non-issue or ignored. Similarly to how GPT3 was often seen as dangerous before ChatGPT was released. Some people who have only ever vibe coded are finding jobs today, ignoring safety entirely and lacking a notion of it or what it means. They just copy paste output from ChatGPT or an agentic IDE. To me it's JIT already with extra steps. Or they have pivoted their software engineers to vibe coding most of the time and don't even touch code anymore doing JIT with extra steps again.
shakna
As "jit" to you means running code, and not "building and executing machine code", maybe you could vibe code this. And enjoy the segfaults.
flumpcakes
It's not a JIT. A JIT produces assembly. You can't "set registers" or do anything useful without assembly code running on the processor.
shakna
Riiight... Which was my point? If you want an AI able to set registers, you want to hook it to a JIT. Which avoids assembly by setting machine code directly into memory and executing said memory.
singularity2001
what he means is why are the tokens not directly machine code tokens
flumpcakes
What is meant by a 'machine code token'? Ultimately a processor needs assembly code as input to do anything. Registers are set by assembly. Data is read by assembly. Hardware is managed through assembly (for example by setting bits in memory). Either I have a complete misunderstanding on what this thread is talking about, or others are commenting with some fundamental assumptions that aren't correct.
birn559
Because any precise description of what the computer is supposed to do is already code as we know it. AI can fill in the gaps between natural language and programming by guessing and because you don't always care about the "how" only about the "what". The more you care about the "how" you have to become more precise in your language to reduce the guess work of the AI to the point that your input to the AI is already code.

The question is: how much do we really care about the "how", even when we think we care about it? Modern programming language don't do guessing work, but they already abstract away quite a lot of the "how".

I believe that's the original argument in favor of coding in assembler and that it will stay relevant.

Following this argument, what AI is really missing is determinism to a far extend. I can't just save my input I have given to an AI and can be sure that it will produce the exact same output in a year from now on.

alightsoul OP
With vibe coding, I am under the impression that the only thing that matters for vibe coders is whether the output is good enough in the moment to fullfill a desire. For companies going AI first that's how it seems to be done. I see people in other places and those people have lost interest in the "how"
birn559
Which is fine in general. It has been a selling point for SQL or C, for example. What I wanted to say is that for AI output becoming a replacement for code, a necessary requirement is that the output becomes deterministic. While LLMs provide that technically, I am not sure the "culture" that has evolved the technology will lead to product that provide determinism.
therein
All you need is a framebuffer and AI.
abhaynayar
Nice try, AI.

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