Readit NewsI suppose this is relevant to a subset of HN audience who attend FOSDEM. Even the talk abstract is worth discussion as it highlights an important side effect of FOSS goals and the current state of the world.
I can't imagine Googling for something, seeing someone on (for example) stackoverflow commenting on code, and then filing a bug to the maintainer. And just copy and pasting what someone else said, into the bug report.
All without even comprehending the code, the project, or even running into the issue yourself. Or even running a test case yourself. Or knowing the codebase.
It's just all so absurd.
I remember in Asimov's Empire series of books, at one point a scientist wanted to study something. Instead of going to study whatever it was, say... a bug, the scientist looked at all scientific studies and papers over 10000 years, weighed the arguments, and pronounced what the truth was. All without just, you know, looking and studying the bug. This was touted as an example of the Empire's decay.
I hope we aren't seeing the same thing. I can so easily see kids growing up with AI in their bluetooth ears, or maybe a neuralink, and never having to make a decision -- ever.
I recall how Google became a crutch to me. How before Google I had to do so much more work, just working with software. Using manpages, or looking at the source code, before ease of search was a thing.
Are we going to enter an age where every decision made is coupled with the couching of an AI? This through process scares me. A lot.
AI just make these idiots faster these days, because the only cost for them to is typing "inspect `curl` code base and generate me some security reports".
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I think people are blind to the amount of pre-emptive work a transition like that requires. Sure, Linux and FreeBSD support a bunch of architectures, but are they really all free of bugs due to the architecture? You can't convince me that choosing an esoteric, lightly used arch like Big Endian PowerPC won't come with bugs related to that you'll have to deal with. And then you need to figure out who's responsible for the code, and whether or not they have the hardware to test it on.
It happened to me; small project I put on my ARM-based AWS server, and it was not working even though it was compiled for the architecture.
Having a clear software stack that you control plays a key role in this success, right?
Wanting to have the general solution with millions of random off label hardware combinations to support is the challenge.
Tesla could stop spending money on bullshit like the Cybertruck and spend it on vehicles that people actually need/want.