Subvocalization: Toward Hearing the Inner Thoughts of Developers (2011) [pdf]

33 pointsposted 3 months ago
by faqriansyah
(chrisparnin.me)

13 Comments

oe

3 months ago

It’s mostly just WTF repeated over and over again

mike_ivanov

3 months ago

I worked with a (very nice and smart) dude who would angrily shout "CRAP!" every few minutes while working on his XUL-based project. I guess, that would teach LLMs a thing or two.

hinkley

3 months ago

WTF, what, fuck, fuck me, oh shit, goddamnit <developer with too high an IQ to consistently write such shitty code>, fuck this, I need coffee for this

Occasionally balanced against:

“Awwww yiss, motherfuckin’ breadcrumbs”, or “damn I’m good”

nickpinkston

3 months ago

Subvocal mics seem like such a killer app for an AI input device - just think and listen to your AI respond through your Airpods.

I've haven't seen anything that looks truly "working" yet other than some hand wavey demos, so I imagine it must be hard to go from sensing to words.

Anyone have any recent news on this?

tumultco

3 months ago

I don't know about "working" but most recently it looks like AlterEgo has gotten closer to a shipping product and did a publicity launch ~a month ago.

nickpinkston

3 months ago

Yea, I was hopeful seeing that, but was also pretty skeptical that they really had done it, as that demo was easy to fake, and I saw no 3rd party verification.

germinalphrase

3 months ago

I tried to do a little digging recently, and didn’t find much outside of 2000-2015. I agree with you though, and would jump at the opportunity to work on that project.

someguy90210

3 months ago

While the seemingly never-eroding mystique of wizardry given to developers from non-devs is flattering, I'm not sure there isn't the same distribution of psychological traits across other technical fields requiring lots of problem solving.

My pattern of thinking is basically: keep loading context in my mind until enough is accumulated and I'm able to solve the problem, re-assessing assumptions and redirecting focus as necessary.

Or, "What the fuck? <git blame> What the fuck were you thinking when you wrote this? Nothing? I bet it was nothing, you dumb feckless piece of dog shit. God dammit I hate you. <smoke break>"

adamzwasserman

3 months ago

If only we could convert it into auto generated comments...

But then, maybe not!

annoyingnoob

3 months ago

Trust me, you don't want to see in there.

hinkley

3 months ago

Aging myself horribly, I used to mutter an old Garrett Morris SNL skit, when I was on my last nerve, and despair was reaching the level of misanthropy, feeling that all developers everywhere were put here on earth with the specific goal to make me miserable:

   I’m gonna git me a shotgun, and shoot all the whiteys I see.