1,027 karma · joined September 18, 2015
In this era, we should build these kinds of tools for problems we know are straightforward ones you can’t get smarter than, even as intelligence continues to advance. Using tools like "bash" or command-line interfaces originally designed for humans is a good initial approach, since we can essentially reuse much of what was built for human use. Later, we can optimize specifically for machines, either accounting for their different cognitive structures (e.g., the ability to memorize extremely long contexts compared to humans) or adapting to the stream-based input/output patterns of current autoregressive token generators.
Eventually, I believe machine intelligence will build their own tools based on these foundations, likely a similar kind of milestone to when humans first began using tools.
[1]: https://openai.com/index/openai-appoints-retired-us-army-gen...
Rust's development used a structured, community RFC process—endless planning by your definition. The result was a famously well-designed toolchain that the entire community praises. FOSS didn't hold it back; it made it good.
So no, commercial backing isn't the only way to ship something good. FOSS is more than capable to ship great software when done right.