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Facebook Creates an AI-Based Tool To Automate Bug Fixes (siliconangle.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

Facebook is trying to speed up the time it takes to roll out new software updates and debug any issues in them with a new tool called SapFix that its engineers are building. From a report: SapFix, which is still under development, is designed to generate fixes automatically for specific bugs before sending them to human engineers for approval. Facebook, which announced the tool today ahead of its Scale conference in San Jose, California, for developers building large-scale systems and applications, calls SapFix an "AI hybrid tool." It uses artificial intelligence to automate the creation of fixes for bugs that have been identified by its software testing tool Sapienz, which is already being used in production. SapFix will eventually be able to operate independently from Sapienz, but for now it's still a proof-of-concept that relies on the latter tool to pinpoint bugs first of all. SapFix can fix bugs in a number of ways, depending on how complex they are, Facebook engineers Yue Jia, Ke Mao and Mark Harman wrote in a blog post announcing the tools. For simpler bugs, SapFix creates patches that revert the code submission that introduced them. In the case of more complicated bugs, SapFix uses a collection of "templated fixes" that were created by human engineers based on previous bug fixes.

19 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. AI Sapienz by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    I'll wait for the version AI Sapienz Sapienz.

  2. With bugs like these. . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    So it sounds like FB has such a predictable habit of creating similar bugs that even some horseshit excuse for AI can see and patch them.

    Facebook - driving AI forward by moving everything else backward.

    1. Re:With bugs like these. . . by greenwow · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > habit of creating similar bugs

      I think every software company does. We wrote our own software code review system, and if a section of code was changed more than twice in the past six months, I flag it as suspicious. That has helped us find a lot of bugs. It's like the old joke "99 little bugs in the code, take one down patch it around, 127 little bugs in the code" meme.

    2. Re:With bugs like these. . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Please open source this. We need this.

      Seriously, most of our bugs are due to bug fixes. A lot of those problems can be caught by using TDD if you write a test first that fails then passes after your change, but I've been almost fired twice for insisting we do TDD. Yes, it takes longer in the short-term, but I think it wastes less time in the long term, especially when you're testing against APIs.

  3. Uh huh... by mujadaddy · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Which is still under development"

    What could possibly go right?

    --
    Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
    "Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
    1. Re:Uh huh... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      IF it fixes itself it would be the AI 'singularity', but it won't.

      Still waiting on DoWhatIWant.exe.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  4. "Alexa . . . please fix Facebook." by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

    "You have just ordered one contract to kill Mark Zuckerberg . . .

    " . . . would you like to join Prime, and have it done tomorrow . . . ?"

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  5. Cool. by RickyShade · · Score: 1

    Maybe the AI will fix "Most Recent" feed and have it ACTUALLY show me the most recent posts again. That is, IF the AI doesn't share Facebook's agenda.......

  6. Re:End game approaches by Pascoea · · Score: 1

    and land will be fiercely contested.

    Have you been anywhere in the middle of the country? Take a ride through North Dakota and tell me how little available land there is...

  7. Great, computers fixing computers. by Pascoea · · Score: 1

    Do you want a sentient computer? Cause that's how you get a sentient computer.

  8. Re:End game approaches by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

    Boy who cried wolf is a cautionary tale, not a how to manual.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  9. AI recommends deletion of javascript by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Proceed [Yes][No]?

  10. Re: WTH SapFix?? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    Their software testing tool is called "sapienz". Presumably SapFix fixes problems that sapienz finds.

  11. Skip article by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    Save your time and skip article, which contains no more information that the headline. They automate bug fix, but you will know how.

  12. Re: WTH SapFix?? by EETech1 · · Score: 2

    Is it ok to still say homo sapiens?

  13. Re: WTH SapFix?? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    Only if you're a homohomo sapienz yourself.

  14. Re: WTH SapFix?? by EETech1 · · Score: 1

    So... I'm a Hetero Saipan now?

    Their Revolution is my evolution?

  15. Bug fixing AI... by JoeDuncan · · Score: 1

    ...will never exceed the bug *creation* rate of humans!

    Humans: 1

    AI: 0

  16. Re:End game approaches by JoeDuncan · · Score: 1

    Take a ride through North Dakota and tell me how little available land there is...

    Oh yeah, and when New York sinks into the ocean - those North Dakotans are *totally* going to WELCOME all the refugees from the city, and just hand out land to them like candy, eh?