Anthropic's new AI tool can write 67-year-old COBOL code, sending 115-year-old IBM's stock tumbling by 13% â IBM stock has worst day in 26 years, down 25% MoM and counting
Listen. I escaped learning COBOL by being born in the 1980s. However, since I'm so fucking old now, I understand that you DO NOT FIRE THE WIZARD. The Wizard, the one who knows the incantations because they were there when the spells were written? Irreplaceable. Don't fuck with them. Pay them whatever they demand and do not ask questions.
If you want to depreciate the Wizard, you cannot use their spells. You must create your own, and you better do it in a language that people under 40 can comprehend. And they have to be as bulletproof as the Wizard's spells. Good luck getting an LLM to do that. Good luck getting a human to do that.
Yeah give me an hour or two with the documentation and I could write COBOL, look out IBM stocks! Will it be elegant or even coherent COBOL? No. Will it at least not contain heaps of in-built time bombs in the form of bugs and security flaws? Also no, but I could write it. As the other commenter said, fuck with the COBOL wizards at your own peril.
If anyone legitimately thinks that this LLM was funded to write successfully in that language instead of just enough to affect the stocks, etc., they're simply not paying attention.
15 Comments
shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol · 77 pts · 203d
Listen. I escaped learning COBOL by being born in the 1980s. However, since I'm so fucking old now, I understand that you DO NOT FIRE THE WIZARD. The Wizard, the one who knows the incantations because they were there when the spells were written? Irreplaceable. Don't fuck with them. Pay them whatever they demand and do not ask questions.
If you want to depreciate the Wizard, you cannot use their spells. You must create your own, and you better do it in a language that people under 40 can comprehend. And they have to be as bulletproof as the Wizard's spells. Good luck getting an LLM to do that. Good luck getting a human to do that.
xep@discuss.online · 22 pts · 203d
It's not hard to learn COBOL. However, the intricacies of the system that The Wizard maintains is another matter altogether.
gressen@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 203d
I would argue that learning those intricaties is a part of learning the language. Otherwise you just know the syntax, somewhat like a LLM.
Madrigal@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 203d
Warhammer 40Kâs concept of Tech-priests is pretty close to the mark.
worhui@lemmy.world · 46 pts · 203d
rem26_art@fedia.io · 41 pts · 203d
IBM's investors really have no clue what COBOL is or why it's still in relevant, do they?
CTDummy@piefed.social · 17 pts · 203d
Yeah give me an hour or two with the documentation and I could write COBOL, look out IBM stocks! Will it be elegant or even coherent COBOL? No. Will it at least not contain heaps of in-built time bombs in the form of bugs and security flaws? Also no, but I could write it. As the other commenter said, fuck with the COBOL wizards at your own peril.
PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social · 10 pts · 203d
Yeah all I'm hearing is "IBM stock goes on sale"
XLE@piefed.social · 19 pts · 203d
An AI company makes a wild promise, stocks go nuts, we find out the company was misleading us... Repeat ad nauseum.
Shadow@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 203d
Anthropic is gonna fund themselves by shorting stocks and then announcing their AI now does something that company does.
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 203d
If anyone legitimately thinks that this LLM was funded to write successfully in that language instead of just enough to affect the stocks, etc., they're simply not paying attention.
nunesgh@piefed.social · 8 pts · 203d
This is American capitalism killing American capitalism in real-time, the dumbest way possible.
tiredofsametab@fedia.io · 6 pts · 203d
The buried lede is that it can apparently time travel to write code 67 years in the past /s
(as with others, I don't see this being trusted by anyone sane... so watch the world burn it shall be)
Peereboominc@piefed.social · 6 pts · 203d
Weird that this let's the stock drop since IBM has its own AI that can convert COBOL to Java(?).
And while the drop is big, also look at the price last year. It is around the same price as it was in August 2025.
ruuster13@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 203d
Haven't we figured out quantum computing? Surely lithography machines can now be liquidated.
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 203d
How did they send it back in time 67 years?