Goalposts

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

2024 Augustalkonaut

About whether DARPA's TRACTOR can automatically translate C programs into Rust.

A line-by line doesn't require much "AI" either. You could probably make a rough translation in some (mostly unsafe) Rust.

Assume the AI actually needs to figure out lifetimes and so on to be actually useful and make valid programs. Which would be impressive if it does.

An AI translates C programs into valid Rust, working out lifetimes itself rather than wrapping everything in unsafe.

Has this happened?

Yes 65 (56%)Not sure 38 (32%)No 14 (12%)

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