• fwlr 13 hours ago

    From the post:

    “Think about what this means … the original SimCity ran on a Commodore 64. An empty Chrome tab takes more memory than that entire machine had. We’re not constrained by hardware anymore. We’re not even constrained by understanding what the code does … codebases will 10-100x in size because AI … endless bugs … the question is whether you’re building with it or explaining why you’re not.”

    Looking through the eyes of an AI champion, I see a world where the first execution of any given idea, the first product to hit the market for any given need, is guaranteed to be AI-generated - with the “10-100x size” codebase, the corresponding (and often superlinear) decrease in performance, and the attendant “endless bugs”.

    • chrisjj 5 hours ago

      > We’re not even constrained by understanding what the code does …

      Key point. We can release this game, have it breach your browser, pwn your machine and rat you to ICE.

    • hulitu 7 hours ago

      > AI ported SimCity to TypeScript in 4 days without reading the code

      And we are expected to believe this with just a picture.

      Is the guy preparing for Mid-term elections and looking at ways to better lie its voters ?

      • chrisjj 5 hours ago

        > And we are expected to believe this with just a picture.

        Some people are. I doubt we are.

      • chrisjj 16 hours ago

        I've read the article and found nothing to substantiate "without reading the code".

        But then, I suspect the article is AI slop. Take this:

        > Christopher Ehrlich just did something that would have taken a team of engineers months. He pointed OpenAI’s 5.3-codex at the entire SimCity (1989) C codebase and let it run.

        No, that wouldn't have taken engineers months.

        > Four days later: the game works in the browser.

        So someome used a (very slow) program to translate a program.

        > No code reading.

        What?? Osmosis, then?

        • skysanctuary 13 hours ago

          It's a bad title.

          I think he meant Christopher didn't read any of the original code himself. The AI certainly ingested it.

          Though, there is this part:

          "Ehrlich wrote a bridge that could call the original C code, then ran property-based tests asserting his TypeScript port performed identically."

          So, he must have had some kind of awareness of how the code worked.

          • chrisjj 5 hours ago

            > I think he meant Christopher didn't read any of the original code himself. The AI certainly ingested it.

            Human fed code he didn't read to a program.

            Not really news, is it?

          • astlouis44 15 hours ago

            The article was written by the CEO of Ycombinator, funnily enough.

            • chrisjj 5 hours ago

              Seriously, what makes you think that? It really looks like parrot slop to me.