frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: LLM is useless without explicit prompt

4•revskill•1y ago
After months playing with LLM models, here's my observation:

- LLM is basically useless without explicit intent in your prompt.

- LLM failed to correct itself. If it generated bullshits, it's an inifinite loop of generating more bullshits.

The question is, without explicit prompt, could LLM leverage all the best practices to provide maintainable code without me instruct it at least ?

Comments

ben_w•1y ago
Your expectations are way too high.

> - LLM is basically useless without explicit intent in your prompt.

You can say the same about every dev I've worked with, including myself. This is literally why humans have meetings rather than all of us diving in to whatever we're self-motivated to do.

What does differ is time-scales of the feedback loop with the management:

Humans meetings are daily to weekly.

According to recent research*, the state-of-the-art models are only 50% accurate at tasks that would take a human expert an hour, or 80% accurate at tasks that would take a human expert 10 minutes.

Even if the currently observed trend of increasing time horizons holds, we're 21 months from having an AI where every other daily standup is "ugh, no, you got it wrong", and just over 5 years from them being able to manage a 2-week sprint with an 80% chance of success (in the absence of continuous feedback).

Even that isn't really enough for them to properly "leverage all the best practices to provide maintainable code", as archiecture and maintainability are longer horizon tasks than 2-week sprints.

* https://youtu.be/evSFeqTZdqs?si=QIzIjB6hotJ0FgHm

revskill•1y ago
It's not as high as you think.

LLM failed at the most basic things related to maintainable code. Its code is basicaly a hackery mess without any structure at all.

It's my expectation is that, at least, some kind of maintainable code is generated from what's it's learnt.

ben_w•1y ago
Given your expectation:

> It's my expectation is that, at least, some kind of maintainable code is generated from what's it's learnt.

And your observation:

> LLM failed at the most basic things related to maintainable code. Its code is basicaly a hackery mess without any structure at all.

QED, *your expectations* are way too high.

They can't do that yet.

Spherical Cow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow
1•kaycebasques•35s ago•0 comments

Ultima Online Retrospective – The Last Hurrah [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35SKawn2SDI
1•danso•4m ago•0 comments

MiMo-v2.6-RL-OSS dataset

https://huggingface.co/datasets/XiaomiMiMo/MiMo-V2.6-RL-oss
1•miyuru•6m ago•0 comments

New in Chrome 154: iframes that automatically resize themselves to their content

https://www.bram.us/2026/09/23/responsive-iframes/
1•eustoria•6m ago•0 comments

Improving site performance by shipping more CSS

https://github.blog/engineering/architecture-optimization/improving-site-performance-by-shipping-...
1•torutofu•7m ago•0 comments

It all fits: wgpu, Metal, Vulkan, WebGL, WASM, WebGPU, Luau [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgcS2OxcV6k
1•cs1996•8m ago•1 comments

Show Keystrokes – Keystroke and Shortcut Visualizer Custom Element

https://show-keystrokes.netlify.app/
1•eustoria•9m ago•0 comments

How Work Network Works: A Multi-Activity Mobile Rewards Platform

https://work-networks.com/how-work-network-works.html
1•onlineiqbal•10m ago•0 comments

Codetta: High-Capacity, Keyless, and Undetectable Multi-Agent Collusion

https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.28900
1•sbulaev•10m ago•0 comments

Minecraft random seed world record (with a particle accelerator) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd5-1IXqiDQ
1•Zusor•10m ago•0 comments

Understanding the Impact of LLM Watermarking on AI Agent Behavior

https://www.lasso.security/blog/the-provenance-tax-understanding-the-impact-of-llm-watermarking-o...
3•nisosguy•11m ago•0 comments

Meta Expands Private Processing Confidential Computing to AI Glasses

https://www.unite.ai/meta-expands-private-processing-confidential-computing-to-ai-glasses/
1•eustoria•11m ago•0 comments

OpenAI Accuses Plaintiffs' Lawyers of Funding and Laundering Copyright Evidence

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/09/25/openai-accuses-plaintiffs-lawyers-of-paying-for-hiding-and-th...
1•m-hodges•11m ago•0 comments

No Blind Trust in AI-Generated Code

https://wearecommunity.io/communities/jacov/articles/8709
1•kvolque•18m ago•1 comments

CEO of Mistral: AI is software. It can be controlled

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2026/09/24/arthur-mensch-ceo-of-french-start-up-mistral...
5•thibaut_barrere•25m ago•2 comments

The Discovery Tax: Why Coding Agents Waste 2,500 Tokens Before Writing Code

https://blog.jarv.dev/the-discovery-tax
4•runtooldev•29m ago•0 comments

Google's orbital AI data center test packs four TPUs and 1,000W of solar power

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/google-is-blasting-an-experimental-ai-dat...
3•pseudolus•29m ago•1 comments

How to Freelance Now?

4•Alexadar•30m ago•0 comments

Typed-lm: a Rust jev open source alternative

https://github.com/neurono-ml/typed-lm
2•andrelgcclaudin•32m ago•1 comments

LaserActive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserActive
3•tosh•33m ago•0 comments

Catching Rogue Agents in Real Time with Synchronous Control Monitoring

https://max.ax/writing/synchronous-control-monitoring/
2•k5hp•35m ago•0 comments

Enabling the next-generation trait solver on nightly

https://blog.rust-lang.org/2026/08/21/enabling-next-solver-on-nightly/
2•bucket2015•37m ago•0 comments

What Does Your Data Reveal About Sports Betting Apps? Help ProPublica Find Out

https://projects.propublica.org/sports-betting-uploader/
1•beatrixlockwood•37m ago•0 comments

Gameboy Macro (2016)

https://www.instructables.com/Gameboy-Macro/
1•tosh•38m ago•0 comments

Maze Toys

https://maze.toys
1•momentmaker•39m ago•0 comments

In Silicon Valley, the End of Humanity Has Always Been Part of the Plan

https://gizmodo.com/in-silicon-valley-the-end-of-humanity-has-always-been-part-of-the-plan-200081...
2•poopcat•39m ago•0 comments

How to Feel Good

https://evanjconrad.com/posts/how-to-feel-good
1•momentmaker•39m ago•0 comments

Many surgical interventions are little better than placebo

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/09/23/many-surgical-interventions-are-littl...
1•sohkamyung•43m ago•0 comments

The computer hacker who tried to take down Man City

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cwywld5v28jo
2•birdmania•46m ago•1 comments

The use of humor in depression: An integration of benefits and risks

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735826000905?via%3Dihub
1•bookofjoe•47m ago•0 comments