alt Hacker NewsGiven that we're now in the year 2025 and AI has become ubiquitous, I'd be curious to estimate what percentage of developers now actually understand backprop.
It's a bit snarky of me, but whenever I see some web developer or product person with a strong opinion about AI and its future, I like to ask "but can you at least tell me how gradient descent works?"
I'd like to see a future where more developers have a basic understanding of ML even if they never go on to do much of it. I think we would all benefit from being a bit more ML-literate.
Replies
Impossible requirement. The inherent quality of abstractions is to allow us to get more done without understanding everything. We dont write raw assembly for the same reason, you dont make fire by rubbing sticks, you dont go hunting for food in the woods, etc.
There is no need for the knowledge that you propose in a world where this is solved, you will achieve more goals by utilizing higher-level tools.
so if you want to have a strong opinion on electric cars you need to be able to explain how an electric engine works right?
> I'd like to see a future where more developers have a basic understanding of ML even if they never go on to do much of it. I think we would all benefit from being a bit more ML-literate.
Plus, I don't think a "gotcha" question like "what is gradient descent" will give you a good signal about someone if it get popularized. It probably will lead to the present-day OOP cargo cult, where everyone just memorizes whatever their lecturer/bootcamp/etc and repeats it to you without actually understanding what it does, why it's the preferred method over other strategies, etc.
I'm wondering: how can understanding gradient descent help in building AI systems on top of LLMs? To mee it feels like the skills of building "AI" are almost orthogonal to skills of building on top of "AI"