Re: LLM usage in Debian -- ballot options comparison

On 03/08/26 at 11:09 +0200, Aigars Mahinovs wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Aug 2026 at 21:14, Theodore Tso <[email protected]> wrote:
> > For example, when I asked Gemini to give me a model answering a
> > financial investment question (e.g., under what assumptions should I
> > sell highly appreciated stock, and take the tax hit right away, but
> > allowing me to diversify my holdings, and when does the advantage of
> > the diversified holdings over take the initial capital gains tax
> > cost).  The way the LLM answered my question was that it generated a
> > Python script, and then ran that Python program in a sandbox, and the
> > formatted the results in a table illustrating the assumptions when the
> > breakeven would be hit.
> >
> > More importantly, it allowed me to download the Python script, and I
> > was able to take that script and modify and enhance it to try out different
> > assumptions.
> >
> > This was incredibly useful to me, and given that the Python program
> > was created specifically to model the question that I was asking, (a)
> > the specialized floating point formay used by LLM's doesn't matter,
> > (b) we don't have to worry about all of the (valid) concerns of LLM
> > not being able to do math, and (c) given that the python script was
> > generated to specific to my question, unless you believe that how to
> > use python libraries to do time value of money calculations are a
> > potential copyright problem, I'm not particularly worried about
> > copyright issues.  (The python script was a throwaway, and I wasn't
> > planning on redistributing it anyway.  :-)
> 
> 
> This is another *HUGE* benefit of this newest generation of LLMs and it is
> a revolutionary change in the wider world that I am am already seeing daily
> - it is personal free software happening at massive scale.
> 
> People, who are *NOT* programmers are able to describe their needs in plain
> language and get their own, personal free software generated that does
> exactly what *they* want it to do. Be it a Python script, be it a OpenSCAD
> 3D model, be it an Android or iPhone application or a web app. We are
> entering into a domain, where an older, non-programmer relative of mine was
> able to generate an Android app for themselves that replace a paid app and
> had extra features they really wanted and get that on their phone working
> perfectly within a couple of hours.

YES.

Personal anecdote:
I was looking for an application to help a child with learning
multiplication tables (clearly a boring thing to learn that children
go through between ages 6 and 8). There are plenty of such apps on
Android and Apple's app stores, and also educational games such as
GCompris (free software and packaged in Debian), but none of them really
matched my needs. I wanted something simple and focused on
multiplication tables, with the ability to select which tables to learn,
define whether I wanted questions like 4x5=? or 4x?=20, etc. Also I
wanted different game modes (streak mode, timer).

I ended up vibe-coding such an app, together with the target user. The
result is https://lnussbaum.github.io/MultiCamiGo/
(spec + source: https://github.com/lnussbaum/MultiCamiGo).

The whole process was very fun. The fact that the target user was able
to contribute to the design (deciding on the name, the color scheme,
coming up with the idea of using emojis) made the later use of the app
for the real learning purpose a lot more acceptable.

Another consequence is that it made the child in question understand the
essence of why programming is fun: the magic of converting thoughts
into something tangible and usable.

> It is life-changing enablement that
> free software movement aways wanted to deliver to everyone, but so far has
> only been able to deliver to programmers.
> 
> This is a massive benefit, that we, as programmers, do not really see or
> value all that much.

Exactly. We have been telling ourselves the story of how free software
enabled users to be in control of their computer and their software, but
this is a bit of a lie: only people with the required technical ability
had that power; others were dependent on someone else. AI changes that
by enabling non-programmers to create their own software.

Lucas