4 ms·

So, for a bit of fun, I signed up to GPT-4 thingy plus and I picked a fairly common web application and built it from scratch, only by talking to GPT-4 and copy

by keyle 4y ago

So, for a bit of fun, I signed up to GPT-4 thingy plus and I picked a fairly common web application and built it from scratch, only by talking to GPT-4 and copy pasting the code bits. I'm actually taken back by how well it's doing; including providing me some refreshers on stuff I forgot how it should work. I can see it failing at solving complex problems, but like the blog post mentions, most programming isn't new or hard problems. This is particularly powerful when you're producing something you've done before, but in a completely different language/stack. You just guide GPT-4 towards the goal, you roughly know the methods needed to get to the end goal and just watch your assistant do all the dirty work. Looking back, I came from a world of floppy disks; I left them behind for zip disks and CDs, then portable disks and cloud storage. I also came from dialup Internet, I left it behind for ADSL then fibre. I feel this is a tangential point here too, where AI, whatever it ends up being called, will become a fulltime assistant making our lives easier; so that we can focus on the hard parts and the creative problem solving. What are we leaving behind? For me, mostly Stack Overflow and Google. You'd be silly to ignore it and palm it off. It's a big deal.

komali2 4y ago
I don't really have anyone to ask questions I get sometimes about building software, and chatGPT has been helping fill the gaps. Basically I'm thinking of it like a combination of a rubber duck and a dialogue-enabled google search. But it's been really helpful along those lines when I'm for example not sure a good way to change a bunch of stuff across a bunch of files, and am pretty sure it's something that can be automated somehow, and chat GPT will be like "have you considered using one tool to get the file names that need changing, then another tool to create an AST of the files, and then another tool to actually modify that AST?" And I'm like oh duh, yeah, I didn't know there's tools like that but I should have assumed there are, nice. Basically that's how all my usage has gone. I've had it write some elisp and it has been ok, sometimes it invents made-up functions (that don't exist in org-mode for example) but I'll just tell it that a function doesn't exist and it'll come up with some other solution, until I get it to a point where all I need to do is change a couple things. I remain highly skeptical the thing will replace me anytime soon (ever in my lifetime?) but I'm surprised at the possibilities of making my life less tedious.
- keyle 4y ago
  Yes, thanks, that's exactly how I feel as well.
- extr 4y ago
  Great example. The way I've described it to people is it's perfect for when you get the feeling you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. You ask ChatGPT, and it's great at pointing out that they actually make round pegs, and here's how you make sure the hole is really lined up nice.
whateveracct 4y ago
Programming takes little effort. It's at most 20% of my effort. Feels like GPT is programming with extra steps. Maybe it's for people who can never think programming is easy. Clearly there's a lot of such types. Explains a lot.
- noitpmeder 4y ago
  /r/iamverysmart I'm reminded of the old "Handyman's Invoice" trope. Actually implementing a solution is not the hard part. What _is_ hard is determining what the solution is in the first place. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/ Once you have a rough idea of the solution, sure maybe GPT-4 can barf snippets to get you there. But it's lightyears away from translating business problems into actionable solutions.
  - danielbln 4y ago
    > But it's lightyears away from translating business problems into actionable solutions. Is it though? Have you tried feeding it business problems and working through to possible solutions paths? Have you roped in additional external information (via agents, tools, vector search, etc.) during that process? I don't see why the model wouldn't be able to translate a lot of business problems into solutions paths.
- sabellito 4y ago
  What I've seen in this thread so far is some people saying "this is really useful in these particular cases" and some others, like yourself, saying "I'm too smart for this, maybe it's useful for inexperienced/incompetent people".
  - whateveracct 4y ago
    I don't even think it's useful for the incompetent. I do think the incompetent think it's useful tho.
    - 4y ago
matwood 4y ago
I think there’s augmenting programmers (which I think will happen) or replacing programmers (which I think will not happen soon). It’s a capable and improving tool that humanity will figure out how to saturate like we do with everything else.
stareatgoats 4y ago
> silly to ignore it and palm it off. It's a big deal. Agree, this is a big deal, and has the capacity to revolutionize all the techniques we have been using up to now for compiling, summarizing and reframing existing knowledge as expressed in writing (including code). Not only does Google get (well deserved) competition, it means pressure on all the businesses that now make a living in that space. In a few years it will even have a serious impact on major such institutions in society like schools and universities. A lot if not all of the kickback from established institutions will be attempts to smear the competition, and by all means, to carve out new niches where GPT-X is not applicable or as efficient. There are valid concerns about the veracity of the information it provides which means there are limits to the extent it can be used in automated processes, but I'd loathe to trust the data unconditionally anyway. As for not being able to think creatively: good on us. But it's likely just temporary.
muyuu 4y ago
assistants and wizards have been tried before with varying levels of success clippy tanked because it annoyed more than it helped, although some people did like it install wizards did their job in a world where a single binary format and OS dominated and stuff ran offline pretty much exclusively, with the odd connection to networks - those installers sorted a laundry list of situations, both underlying situations and user configurations and choices, and for the most part they worked Siri, Cortana, Alexa etc have been working as expert systems with central curated bases and some AI/ML on top, for a lot of people they've been working quite well - for me personally they've sucked, they've totally failed to answer my questions the few times I've tried them, and they've creeped the hell out of me (they are a lot more centred on extracting my info and selling me stuff than understanding stuff) generative ML is orders of magnitude more sophisticated, but so are our needs and our computing from a global perspective, it does make sense that those assistants, pilots, etc start taking off but the incentive issues of the previous generation assistants and recommendation algorithms remains there and I wonder how will that turn out - if they start demanding access to my phone, my email, my contacts etc I will do my best to avoid them and to poison any info I have to give them
whiplash451 4y ago
My experience is exactly the same. We are truly going through a singularity moment right now. The difference with the examples you gave (floppy disks, etc.) is the speed at which it happened. There was Jan'23, and there was March'23.
mentos 4y ago
Yea my question now is can you figure out how to automate/abstract your process of guiding GPT?

by keyle 4y ago

komali2 4y ago

I don't really have anyone to ask questions I get sometimes about building software, and chatGPT has been helping fill the gaps. Basically I'm thinking of it like a combination of a rubber duck and a dialogue-enabled google search. But it's been really helpful along those lines when I'm for example not sure a good way to change a bunch of stuff across a bunch of files, and am pretty sure it's something that can be automated somehow, and chat GPT will be like "have you considered using one tool to get the file names that need changing, then another tool to create an AST of the files, and then another tool to actually modify that AST?" And I'm like oh duh, yeah, I didn't know there's tools like that but I should have assumed there are, nice. Basically that's how all my usage has gone. I've had it write some elisp and it has been ok, sometimes it invents made-up functions (that don't exist in org-mode for example) but I'll just tell it that a function doesn't exist and it'll come up with some other solution, until I get it to a point where all I need to do is change a couple things. I remain highly skeptical the thing will replace me anytime soon (ever in my lifetime?) but I'm surprised at the possibilities of making my life less tedious.

keyle 4y ago
Yes, thanks, that's exactly how I feel as well.
extr 4y ago
Great example. The way I've described it to people is it's perfect for when you get the feeling you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. You ask ChatGPT, and it's great at pointing out that they actually make round pegs, and here's how you make sure the hole is really lined up nice.

whateveracct 4y ago

Programming takes little effort. It's at most 20% of my effort. Feels like GPT is programming with extra steps. Maybe it's for people who can never think programming is easy. Clearly there's a lot of such types. Explains a lot.

noitpmeder 4y ago
/r/iamverysmart I'm reminded of the old "Handyman's Invoice" trope. Actually implementing a solution is not the hard part. What _is_ hard is determining what the solution is in the first place. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/ Once you have a rough idea of the solution, sure maybe GPT-4 can barf snippets to get you there. But it's lightyears away from translating business problems into actionable solutions.
- danielbln 4y ago
  > But it's lightyears away from translating business problems into actionable solutions. Is it though? Have you tried feeding it business problems and working through to possible solutions paths? Have you roped in additional external information (via agents, tools, vector search, etc.) during that process? I don't see why the model wouldn't be able to translate a lot of business problems into solutions paths.
sabellito 4y ago
What I've seen in this thread so far is some people saying "this is really useful in these particular cases" and some others, like yourself, saying "I'm too smart for this, maybe it's useful for inexperienced/incompetent people".
- whateveracct 4y ago
  I don't even think it's useful for the incompetent. I do think the incompetent think it's useful tho.
  - 4y ago

matwood 4y ago

I think there’s augmenting programmers (which I think will happen) or replacing programmers (which I think will not happen soon). It’s a capable and improving tool that humanity will figure out how to saturate like we do with everything else.

stareatgoats 4y ago

> silly to ignore it and palm it off. It's a big deal. Agree, this is a big deal, and has the capacity to revolutionize all the techniques we have been using up to now for compiling, summarizing and reframing existing knowledge as expressed in writing (including code). Not only does Google get (well deserved) competition, it means pressure on all the businesses that now make a living in that space. In a few years it will even have a serious impact on major such institutions in society like schools and universities. A lot if not all of the kickback from established institutions will be attempts to smear the competition, and by all means, to carve out new niches where GPT-X is not applicable or as efficient. There are valid concerns about the veracity of the information it provides which means there are limits to the extent it can be used in automated processes, but I'd loathe to trust the data unconditionally anyway. As for not being able to think creatively: good on us. But it's likely just temporary.

muyuu 4y ago

assistants and wizards have been tried before with varying levels of success clippy tanked because it annoyed more than it helped, although some people did like it install wizards did their job in a world where a single binary format and OS dominated and stuff ran offline pretty much exclusively, with the odd connection to networks - those installers sorted a laundry list of situations, both underlying situations and user configurations and choices, and for the most part they worked Siri, Cortana, Alexa etc have been working as expert systems with central curated bases and some AI/ML on top, for a lot of people they've been working quite well - for me personally they've sucked, they've totally failed to answer my questions the few times I've tried them, and they've creeped the hell out of me (they are a lot more centred on extracting my info and selling me stuff than understanding stuff) generative ML is orders of magnitude more sophisticated, but so are our needs and our computing from a global perspective, it does make sense that those assistants, pilots, etc start taking off but the incentive issues of the previous generation assistants and recommendation algorithms remains there and I wonder how will that turn out - if they start demanding access to my phone, my email, my contacts etc I will do my best to avoid them and to poison any info I have to give them

whiplash451 4y ago

My experience is exactly the same. We are truly going through a singularity moment right now. The difference with the examples you gave (floppy disks, etc.) is the speed at which it happened. There was Jan'23, and there was March'23.

mentos 4y ago

Yea my question now is can you figure out how to automate/abstract your process of guiding GPT?