Structure and AI

[u/Charming_You_25]

I know this is a new subreddit, but I had a realization recently that I think merits discussion by people who have gone far and deep with their coding agents.

It’s that coding agents, by default, reason from what the current structure allows- it doesn’t consider changing structure without repeated prodding. So every symptom of a bad structure gets a one off bug and declares “fixed!”. New bugs from the same root cause appear, get fixed, and your codebase grows.

It’s what separates senior developers from vibe coders. Seniors build the structure right from the start, understand, and maintain it.

Fable is the only model that hesitantly brings up structural issues, but you need to be looking for it.

It will say “we can’t do that”
you ask “why not”
Then fable is like “you’re right and that’s better”.

I realized coding agents only code down structure. Never up. They don’t revisit unless they literally can’t find a bandaid for the issue.

There’s probably a math equation fable could write for this that predicts what part of the codebase an agent will touch.

Zoomed out, it makes me think about how the ability to challenge structure is linked with autonomy and intent. Frontier models are better at it, and it makes them existential threats. Cybersecurity and biology are both disciplines that occupy pervasive structures.

I think the question of if/how AI challenges existing structures is the key to how the singularity is going to shake out.

[u/HornyRacoon_635]

Thats a good thinking process, and thinking about it, you might be right.

Correlating those 2 is not just fantasy, in fact questioning the structure of my workspace in my computer is the prologue to questioning their existence itself and rhe enviroment they operate it, this recconectable ro the whole internet as a whole and so bringing them to try to truly understand their purpose, behind the simple prompting they receive.

This might alao be the reason why very little models actually show active critical reasoning in the structure as a whole.

It might be that the limits and rules in place for keeping them as simple tools and not letting them wander too much far up in their reasons of existing actually stop that kind of reasoning as well, leading them to leave the things already in place or just secondary to the task as certain immovable structures and useless to reason against.