[HN Gopher] Can LLMs earn $1M from real freelance coding work?
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       Can LLMs earn $1M from real freelance coding work?
        
       Author : nickwritesit
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2025-04-16 15:26 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (newsletter.getdx.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (newsletter.getdx.com)
        
       | josefresco wrote:
       | This resonated with me based on my recent experience using Claude
       | to help me code. I almost gave up, but re-phrased the initial
       | request (after 7-10 failed tries) and it finally nailed it.
       | 
       | > 3. Performance improves with multiple attempts Allowing the o1
       | model 7 attempts instead of 1 nearly tripled its success rate,
       | going from 16.5% to 46.5%. This hints that current models may
       | have the knowledge to solve many more problems but struggle with
       | execution on the first try.
       | 
       | https://newsletter.getdx.com/i/160797867/performance-improve...
        
         | Suppafly wrote:
         | I haven't really messed with Claude or other programming AIs
         | much, but when using chatgpt for random stuff, it seems like
         | the safety rails end up blocking a lot of stuff and rephrasing
         | to get around them is necessary. I wonder if some of these
         | programming AIs would be more useful if it some of the context
         | that causes them to produce invalid results was more obvious to
         | the users.
        
       | cmsj wrote:
       | tl;dr, and as Betteridge's Law would lead you to believe, the
       | answer is no.
        
         | Suppafly wrote:
         | >Betteridge's Law
         | 
         | Is that the one that says if an article title ends in a
         | question that means the answer is no?
        
       | dboreham wrote:
       | How do they know the tasks were "solved"? Wouldn't that require
       | the customer to be happy, and pay the bounty?
        
       | kirktrue wrote:
       | Unless I am repeatedly missing it, it's not mentioned in the
       | article how much money the researchers spent performing the
       | tests. What was the budget for the AI execution? If the
       | researchers only spent $10,000 to "earn" $400,000, that's
       | amazing, whereas if they spent $500,000 for the same result,
       | that's obviously less exciting.
        
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       (page generated 2025-04-16 17:01 UTC)