Am Fr 23.10.2026 09:18 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones via ghc-devs:
But your implicit question is: what if there is a subsystem that literally no one understands and no one wants to be responsible for? In the old days we’d be totally stuck. Now there is the possibility of using an LLM to directly maintain the code. Now no one understands it even more – but perhaps that is not worse than the status quo.
This is a bit like saying “What if I don’t have the strength to do certain tasks anymore? In the old days, I’d be totally stuck. Now there is the possibility to use some fancy new drug to make me energetic. Next day I’ll always be even weaker than in the beginning, but I can take a higher dose. Perhaps that is not worse than the status quo.”
Claude is identifying bugs in my MRs that require deep insight. I’m boggled by how clever it is. And it’s getting better.
To reiterate an important point: LLM systems don’t have insight and aren’t clever. If they find something, it is only by sucking it out from past utterances of clever humans using ridiculous amounts of energy. There’s likely a limit to what can be done with that. All the best, Wolfgang