Goalposts

Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?

2022 Decemberborbulon

About a claim that AI will soon take over software engineering.

We are years and years away from this. We still need to go from

"I can write a function that does what I tell it to do, and I need someone with engineering and architecture expertise to determine if this function does that, error-free, and understands how it fits together with all the other functions I've had this AI write"

to

"I can write a complex architecture which manages multiple data points doing multiple things."

An AI designs and writes a complex software architecture with many interacting parts, without needing an expert to check it.

Has this happened?

Yes 75 (61%)Not sure 21 (17%)No 26 (21%)

Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.