6 ms·

Reflection – AlphaGo / Gemini team building superintelligent coding agents

26 points by mlaskin 2y ago

mlaskin 2y ago
Launching Reflection. Our team pioneered major advances in RL and LLMs, including AlphaGo, AlphaZero, and Gemini. We're building superintelligent autonomous systems. Starting with autonomous coding. We believe that solving autonomous coding will enable superintelligence more broadly.
- QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
  Do you guys wargame out the best case scenario? Like, if everything goes exactly as you plan, what is life like for an average kid born in 2030?
  - UncleEntity 2y ago
    Somebody has to provide the fuel for the super-intelligent machines...
  - fragmede 2y ago
    Best case: Star Trek Worst case: Terminator Do you really want more technologists to also be politicians?
drubs 2y ago
Really excited to be a part of the team!
cgrimm1994 2y ago
Excited to be out of stealth!
carrick__44 2y ago
What's the reason behind this? If agents can code, doesn't that effectively take away your job as an engineer and even your work? I mean, if I can use your agent to build myself your company, how are you going to survive in the future?
- warkdarrior 2y ago
  The cost of using their agent to replicate the same agent may be astronomical. Maybe the Reflection folks figured out that will bring them enough $$$ to retire afterwards.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  Presumably: 1. They think they can control this and sell you a service that can make any app you want nearly instantly. 2. They plan to use any profit they make from the service or sale of the company and invest it in stocks/bonds/real estate after and retire before they themselves get replaced. 3. They plan to use this to keep the team small. One talking point of AI is that it could allow far fewer people to make a valuable company. 4. They don't really know what will happen in that world.
- mrs6969 2y ago
  That is the question I keep asking myself. Many makes theories about getting rid of software developers. İf this can be achieved, then software companies wont exist. Every new day, there should be a new OS like windows, a new word, excel etc. So, it is not engineer shooting themself from the foot, but software companies does ?
- UncleEntity 2y ago
  Funny how HNers are now concerned but were all 'meh' when Silicon Valley has been trying to automate away my job for years. The world is a safer place when you take fallible humans out of the loop, don't ya know?
deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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semi-extrinsic 2y ago
I read the page and actually laughed out loud. Their "roadmap" literally says 1. Build coding agents (currently working on this) 2. Make the agents superintelligent 3. ???? 4. PROFIT
- aurareturn 2y ago
  It's a good way to extract as much VC money as possible. Set an outrageous goal.
- tmpz22 2y ago
  3. is embrace, extend, extinguish. If these tools get to a point where they redefine software development (they unequivocally have not redefined software lifecycles at all companies I have witnessed) then they will build up dependencies for these tools at the enterprise level while slowly ratcheting up the prices for all tiers. Finally they'll reduce alternative development options and features, requiring access to these tools to compete at a high level. I don't think they'll ever be so good that they beat a truly great software engineer. But they'll get into the 60th or whatever percentile where they become an honest player in the off shoring conversation. Before all this happens software engineer salaries and soft power will tank, purely off the rhetoric used as a shield so the executives can avoid the guillotine. Remember we absolutely cannot unionize because then we'll earn less money. No matter what we must not unionize.
andy_xor_andrew 2y ago
Great to see. AlphaGo inspired me so much, right as I was taking ML courses in college. Right as I was learning about Q-Learning in college, they published Deep Q-Networks / AlphaGo. It really lit a spark in me.
vagab0nd 2y ago
We are about to find out that if you let a human read every book, then only let her play games and code programs, what is going to happen. Would she have general intelligence just like everyone else?
- aeve890 2y ago
  Who is this "she" human you are talking about?
CharlesW 2y ago
I thought it was interesting that neither the headline ("Reflection: A Path to Superintelligence") or the subhead ("Reflection is an AI company building superintelligent autonomous systems") bother to mention coding. After all, if you're not on the "superintelligence" hype train, what are you even doing?

26 points by mlaskin 2y ago

Launching Reflection. Our team pioneered major advances in RL and LLMs, including AlphaGo, AlphaZero, and Gemini. We're building superintelligent autonomous systems. Starting with autonomous coding. We believe that solving autonomous coding will enable superintelligence more broadly.

QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
Do you guys wargame out the best case scenario? Like, if everything goes exactly as you plan, what is life like for an average kid born in 2030?
- UncleEntity 2y ago
  Somebody has to provide the fuel for the super-intelligent machines...
- fragmede 2y ago
  Best case: Star Trek Worst case: Terminator Do you really want more technologists to also be politicians?

drubs 2y ago

Really excited to be a part of the team!

cgrimm1994 2y ago

Excited to be out of stealth!

carrick__44 2y ago

What's the reason behind this? If agents can code, doesn't that effectively take away your job as an engineer and even your work? I mean, if I can use your agent to build myself your company, how are you going to survive in the future?

warkdarrior 2y ago
The cost of using their agent to replicate the same agent may be astronomical. Maybe the Reflection folks figured out that will bring them enough $$$ to retire afterwards.
aurareturn 2y ago
Presumably: 1. They think they can control this and sell you a service that can make any app you want nearly instantly. 2. They plan to use any profit they make from the service or sale of the company and invest it in stocks/bonds/real estate after and retire before they themselves get replaced. 3. They plan to use this to keep the team small. One talking point of AI is that it could allow far fewer people to make a valuable company. 4. They don't really know what will happen in that world.
mrs6969 2y ago
That is the question I keep asking myself. Many makes theories about getting rid of software developers. İf this can be achieved, then software companies wont exist. Every new day, there should be a new OS like windows, a new word, excel etc. So, it is not engineer shooting themself from the foot, but software companies does ?
UncleEntity 2y ago
Funny how HNers are now concerned but were all 'meh' when Silicon Valley has been trying to automate away my job for years. The world is a safer place when you take fallible humans out of the loop, don't ya know?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

semi-extrinsic 2y ago

I read the page and actually laughed out loud. Their "roadmap" literally says 1. Build coding agents (currently working on this) 2. Make the agents superintelligent 3. ???? 4. PROFIT

aurareturn 2y ago
It's a good way to extract as much VC money as possible. Set an outrageous goal.
tmpz22 2y ago
3. is embrace, extend, extinguish. If these tools get to a point where they redefine software development (they unequivocally have not redefined software lifecycles at all companies I have witnessed) then they will build up dependencies for these tools at the enterprise level while slowly ratcheting up the prices for all tiers. Finally they'll reduce alternative development options and features, requiring access to these tools to compete at a high level. I don't think they'll ever be so good that they beat a truly great software engineer. But they'll get into the 60th or whatever percentile where they become an honest player in the off shoring conversation. Before all this happens software engineer salaries and soft power will tank, purely off the rhetoric used as a shield so the executives can avoid the guillotine. Remember we absolutely cannot unionize because then we'll earn less money. No matter what we must not unionize.

andy_xor_andrew 2y ago

Great to see. AlphaGo inspired me so much, right as I was taking ML courses in college. Right as I was learning about Q-Learning in college, they published Deep Q-Networks / AlphaGo. It really lit a spark in me.

vagab0nd 2y ago

We are about to find out that if you let a human read every book, then only let her play games and code programs, what is going to happen. Would she have general intelligence just like everyone else?

aeve890 2y ago
Who is this "she" human you are talking about?

CharlesW 2y ago

I thought it was interesting that neither the headline ("Reflection: A Path to Superintelligence") or the subhead ("Reflection is an AI company building superintelligent autonomous systems") bother to mention coding. After all, if you're not on the "superintelligence" hype train, what are you even doing?