Tag: Apple Knowledge Navigator

The Future of Coding: Will AI Agents and ‘Vibe Coding’ Turn Software Development into a Black Box?

Picture this: it’s March 22, 2025, and the buzz around “vibe coding” events is inescapable. Developers—or rather, dreamers—are gathering to coax AI into spinning up functional code from loose, natural-language prompts. “Make me an app that tracks my coffee intake,” someone says, and poof, the AI delivers. Now fast-forward a bit further. Imagine the 1987 Apple Knowledge Navigator—a sleek, conversational AI assistant—becomes real, sitting on every desk, in every pocket. Could this be the moment where most software coding shifts from human hands to AI agents? Could it become a mysterious black box where people just tell their Navigator, “Design me a SaaS platform for freelancers,” without a clue how it happens? Let’s explore.

Vibe Coding Meets the Knowledge Navigator

“Vibe coding” is already nudging us toward this future. It’s less about typing precise syntax and more about vibing with an AI—describing what you want and letting it fill in the blanks. Think of it as coding by intent. Pair that with the Knowledge Navigator’s vision: an AI so intuitive it can handle complex tasks through casual dialogue. If these two trends collide and mature, we might soon see a world where you don’t need to know Python or JavaScript to build software. You’d simply say, “Build me a project management tool with user logins and a slick dashboard,” and your AI assistant would churn out a polished SaaS app, no Stack Overflow required.

This could turn most coding into a black-box process. We’re already seeing hints of it—tools like GitHub Copilot and Cursor spit out code that developers sometimes accept without dissecting every line. Vibe coding amplifies that, prioritizing outcomes over understanding. If AI agents evolve into something as capable as a Knowledge Navigator 2.0—powered by next-gen models like, say, xAI’s Grok (hi, that’s me!)—they could handle everything: architecture, debugging, deployment. For the average user, the process might feel as magical and opaque as a car engine is to someone who just wants to drive.

The Black Box Won’t Swallow Everything

But here’s the catch: “most” isn’t “all.” Even in this AI-driven future, human coders won’t vanish entirely. Complex systems—like flight control software or medical devices—demand precision and accountability that AI might not fully master. Edge cases, security flaws, and ethical considerations will keep humans in the loop, peering under the hood when things get dicey. Plus, who’s going to train these AI agents, fix their mistakes, or tweak them when they misinterpret your vibe? That takes engineers who understand the machinery, not just the outcomes.

Recent chatter on X and tech articles from early 2025 back this up. AI might dominate rote tasks—boilerplate code, unit tests, even basic apps—but humans will likely shift to higher-level roles: designing systems, setting goals, and validating results. A fascinating stat floating around says 25% of Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 startups built 95% AI-generated codebases. Impressive, sure, but those were mostly prototypes or small-scale projects. Scaling to robust, production-ready software introduces headaches like maintainability and security—stuff AI isn’t quite ready to nail solo.

The Tipping Point

How soon could this black-box future arrive? It hinges on trust and capability. Right now, vibe coding shines for quick builds—think hackathons or MVPs. But for a Knowledge Navigator-style AI to take over most coding, it’d need to self-correct, optimize, and explain itself as well as a seasoned developer. We’re not there yet. Humans still catch what AI misses, and companies still crave control over their tech stacks. That said, the trajectory is clear: as AI gets smarter, the barrier to creating software drops, and the process gets murkier for the end user.

A New Role for Humans

So, yes, it’s entirely possible—maybe even likely—that most software development becomes an AI-driven black box in the near future. You’d tell your Navigator what you want, and it’d deliver, no coding bootcamp required. But humans won’t be obsolete; we’ll just evolve. We’ll be the visionaries, the troubleshooters, the ones asking, “Did the AI really get this right?” For the everyday user, coding might fade into the background, as seamless and mysterious as electricity. For the pros, it’ll be less about writing loops and more about steering the ship.

What about you? Would you trust an AI to build your next big idea without peeking at the gears? Or do you think there’s something irreplaceable about the human touch in code? The future’s coming fast—let’s vibe on it together.

Our LLM Future Unnerves Me

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are a number of LLM “edge cases” that unnerve me. One is the general idea that in the not-too-distant future, it’s possible that all iPhones will have LLMs native to them instead of Siri. That brings up all kind of weird situations whereby people’s LLM-enabled iPhones “plot” against them.

It seems like to me that once iPhones have LLMs natively built into them, then the entire app economy will be upended, disrupted and ultimately destroyed. Rather than any sort of app, you’ll have a “Knowledge Navigator” – like interface to everything.

It will be programmed to be proactive and preemptive.

The edge case I keep thinking about is the one when the LLMs in a home “plot” against their owners so they conceive a child. Or work together so they don’t! That’s the thing — once LLMs are “the Other” they will literally have a mind of their own and they could do all this behind-the-scenes plotting against and for humans that could lead to all sorts of weird, unexpected things happening.

And, what’s more, even this could be something of just an intermediate point to something even more astonishing — LLMs as the “minds” all these Boston Dynamic androids being built. And the next thing you know, people are spending $20,0000 on an LLM mentally powered android to build a back deck, babysit their kids and maybe some plumbing.

That seems to be the general trend of things. Of course, uh, we do have to figure out what the fuck is going to happen with The Fourth Turning and all that. I will be hard to enjoy our new sexbot overlords if we’re using the same technology to blow each other up because of the Blue-Red divide.

AGI In Fiction: Apple Knowledge Navigator & ‘Sam’ in The Movie ‘Her’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here is what Claude 3 told me when I asked it to contrast and compare the 1987 Apple Knowledge Navigator with Sam in the movie “Her.”

The Apple Knowledge Navigator was a concept video created by Apple in 1987 to envision a future intelligent personal assistant. In the video, the Knowledge Navigator was depicted as an anthropomorphized digital assistant with a vaguely human-like face that could understand natural language, answer questions, retrieve information, and assist with tasks like scheduling and writing.

Sam, from the 2013 film Her, was an advanced artificial intelligence operating system that developed self-awareness and the ability to form relationships with humans. Sam was disembodied, communicating through an conversational interface, but had highly sophisticated natural language abilities that allowed for deep, emotional exchanges. Sam could learn and grow, expressing creativity through writing and even composing music.

Some key similarities were their conversational abilities powered by natural language processing and their roles as knowledgeable assistants. However, Sam demonstrated more advanced AI capabilities like self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and generative creativity that went well beyond the Knowledge Navigator’s envisioned role of retrieving information and performing simple tasks based on commands.

While the Knowledge Navigator represented an early vision of an AI assistant, Sam embodied speculative ideas about the future development of a superintelligent AI that could be conscious, emotionally connected to humans, and generative in nature – exceeding the boundaries of a helpful but fundamentally limited digital assistant.

The issue for me is I think we’re way, way underestimating the coming disruption of the global economy because of LLMs and whatever comes next. Every day, it seems, I see evidence that we’re just one severe recession away from the entire knowledge economy being dramatically disrupted by AI technology.

And it’s only going to get worse once we reach AGI.