OpenAI Codex (next generation) - it looks like we are finally "there"

[dmm]

There was a live demo of the next generation of OpenAI Codex code-generating software on August 10.

My impression from it is that "we have finally arrived" - this is a programming tool which seems to be more useful than an extra entry-level software engineer on the team. This starts to address the key bottleneck of our times: our limited ability to create software.

This was always my threshold: can we create an AI software which can be "hired instead of a junior software engineer"? That was the main temporal uncertainty for me: how long would it take to reach that level? It looks like this has been accomplished.

We are rapidly approaching the situation when AI will actively participate in programming AI software, for better or for worse...

OpenAI Codex is now a part of OpenAI API (which is still a closed beta with a waitlist), and it will be possible to participate in an informal competition today from 10am Pacific time (1pm Eastern) till 1pm Pacific (4pm Eastern) and try it a bit.

Links are in the comments.

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

Interesting. How does it know what to do, I wonder.

[dmm]

Like, is there an additional secret sauce, in addition to just training a large Transformer on a selected subset of GitHub?

There might be some things which they don't yet disclose or spell out.

An earlier version of Codex is described in a July paper which I discuss a bit in the comments here: https://dmm.dreamwidth.org/44860.html

So, the main principles underlying the functioning of this system are reasonably well known.

But I think there might be some further improvements which are not spelled out yet (this new version is really good).

[dmm]

К последней задаче соревнования она вообще нашла мне решение в стиле функционального программирования, не побоялась просто сформировать список перестановок с желанным свойством через list comprehension и вернуть его длину в качестве результата:

https://dmm.dreamwidth.org/47121.html?thread=186385#cmt186385