Forget 'Vibe Coding': Why Karpathy's Talk Shows Fundamentals Still Matter
What a great talk by Andrej Karpathy - he's got to be one of the best communicators of this era of AI and LLMs! His talk is very high in information density - and there's something for everyone including the non-technical audience. Here are a few of my key takeaways and observations. Let me know what you think!โฃ
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- Software 1.0 is the traditional programming paradigm that those of us in the industry are familiar with. Almost all the traditional software (e.g., operating systems, business applications, video games) that exists today is created in this paradigm. โฃ
- Software 2.0 uses neural nets and lots of data to solve problems that are very hard or impossible to solve using Software 1.0 like autonomous driving, natural language processing and speech recognition. LLMs, of course, are the best known examples of Software 2.0.โฃ
- Software 3.0 builds on top of LLMs (software 2.0) and writes code with natural language prompts from users.โฃ
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๐. ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ง๐๐๐ฆ๐๐ง๐ญ๐๐ฅ ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ฌ ๐จ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐ญ ๐๐๐ฏ๐๐ฅ๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ซ ๐๐ซ๐๐ง'๐ญ ๐๐ก๐๐ง๐ ๐ข๐ง๐ .โฃ
- Vibe coding gets all the memes but the maximum value will be generated by developers who are well versed in all the three paradigms (or at least in 1.0 and 3.0).โฃ
- Developers that have a clear and accurate mental model of what is needed and effectively communicate that to the LLM will be more productive than those that do not.โฃ
- Given the current limitations of LLMs (like context window length and unreliability), Developers need to know how to implement the changes in manageable chunks and how to debug and fix issues when things eventually go wrong.โฃ
- Of course, the ability to design and architect software with all the x'ties (maintainability, supportability, scalability, etc.) remains as valuable as ever.โฃ
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๐. ๐๐ฎ๐ข๐ฅ๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐จ๐จ๐ฅ๐ฌ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐ญ๐ก๐ "๐ฃ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐ ๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐ ๐๐ง๐๐" ๐จ๐ ๐๐๐๐ฌโฃ
- AGI and ASI are getting all the attention with the promise and threat they pose to the world as we know itโฃ
- But significant effort and innovation will be going into developing tools and applications with UI/UX capabilities that allow users to work with the "jagged intelligence" of LLMs with embedded verifiers and fine grained control on AI autonomy. โฃ
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๐. ๐๐๐๐จ๐ฆ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ง๐ญ-๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ง๐๐ฑ๐ญ ๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐ญ ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ง๐ฌ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ฆ๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐งโฃ
- It took businesses over a decade to build a mature web presence, and another decade to go mobile-native.โฃ
- I think the next major transformation for businesses is to become agent-native: both for exposing their services to external agents and for embedding agentic solutions in their internal processes.โฃ
- IMO, this transformation is a marathon that will likely take the next decade to fully realize.โฃ