About whether AI can write large software systems, given GitHub Copilot and AI-written text.
Has this happened?
Yes 11 (9%)Not sure 34 (27%)No 80 (64%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About whether AI can write large software systems, given GitHub Copilot and AI-written text.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
And such a thing has never been achieved with code. Besides very often the texts such an ai creates are non-sensical. And they are very short. Writing a few pages of text would equivalent to small tool of a few hundred lines. Or about the same as building a wooden shed. You don't need much skill for that. Come back when an AI can write multiple internally consistent books such as LOTR and the Dilation or the Harry Potter series. That's the scale of architecting a system.