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DARPA suggests turning old C code automatically into Rust – using AI, of course (www.theregister.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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To accelerate the transition to memory safe programming languages, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is driving the development of TRACTOR, a programmatic code conversion vehicle.

The term stands for TRanslating All C TO Rust. It's a DARPA project that aims to develop machine-learning tools that can automate the conversion of legacy C code into Rust.

The reason to do so is memory safety. Memory safety bugs, such buffer overflows, account for the majority of major vulnerabilities in large codebases. And DARPA's hope is that AI models can help with the programming language translation, in order to make software more secure.

"You can go to any of the LLM websites, start chatting with one of the AI chatbots, and all you need to say is 'here's some C code, please translate it to safe idiomatic Rust code,' cut, paste, and something comes out, and it's often very good, but not always," said Dan Wallach, DARPA program manager for TRACTOR, in a statement.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

And you’re making the assumption that it could be. Why am I the only one who needs to show anything?

"Could be" is the null hypothesis.

any person

Hmm I'm guessing you don't have children.

What do you mean, “certain of the answer?” It’s math

Oh dear. I dunno where to start here... but basically while maths itself is either true or false, our certainty of a mathematical truth is definitely not. Even for the cleverest mathematicians there are now proofs that are too complicated for humans to understand. They have to be checked by machines... then how much do you trust that the machine checker is bug free? Formal verification tools often have bugs.

Just because something "is math" doesn't mean we're certain of it.

Can I ask where’s your proof?

I don't have proof. That's my point. Your position is no stronger than the opposite position. You just asserted it as fact.