3 ms·

On the other hand, we already specify programs in natural language, and in this case chatGPT is really taking a "specification language" as input. When a clien

On the other hand, we already specify programs in natural language, and in this case chatGPT is really taking a "specification language" as input. When a client wants a button on a webpage, they don't send the web designer a legaleze document describing the dimensions of the button. They usually don't even tell the designer what font to use. The web designer pattern matches the client's english request to the dozens of websites they've built, similar buttons they've seen and used, and then either asks for clarification, or specifies it clearly to the machine in a more specific way. Is that different from the chatGPT flow? Honestly, we also already mostly use english for programming too, not just design. Most of programming now is glueing together libraries, and libraries don't provide a formal logical specification of how each function works. No, they provide english documentation saying something like "http.get(url) returns an httpresponse object or an error". That's far from an actual mathematical specification of how it works, but the plain english definition is enough that most programmers won't ever look at the implementation, the actually correct specification, because the english docs are fine.

viraptor 4y ago
> Is that different from the chatGPT flow? The designer knows the context of the question, the website, the previous meetings about the design styles, possibly information about the visitor demographics and goals, knows the implicit rules about approvals and company hierarchy, knows the toolset used, the project conventions, the previous issues, the test procedures, etc. The equivalent of telling a designer where you want a new button would be equivalent to feeding a small book of the implicit context into ChatGPT and without access to visual feedback you could still end up with an off-screen button that passes all the tests and doesn't do anything. The "fun" part is that for simple tasks 90% of the time it will work every time - then it will do something completely stupid. > they don't send the web designer a legaleze That's the implicit context. (And yeah, bad assumptions about what both sides agree on causes problems for people too) Also, chatgpt will try to make you happy. You want a green button here? You'll get a green button here. A designer instead will tell you it's a terrible idea and breaks accessibility.

viraptor 4y ago

> Is that different from the chatGPT flow? The designer knows the context of the question, the website, the previous meetings about the design styles, possibly information about the visitor demographics and goals, knows the implicit rules about approvals and company hierarchy, knows the toolset used, the project conventions, the previous issues, the test procedures, etc. The equivalent of telling a designer where you want a new button would be equivalent to feeding a small book of the implicit context into ChatGPT and without access to visual feedback you could still end up with an off-screen button that passes all the tests and doesn't do anything. The "fun" part is that for simple tasks 90% of the time it will work every time - then it will do something completely stupid. > they don't send the web designer a legaleze That's the implicit context. (And yeah, bad assumptions about what both sides agree on causes problems for people too) Also, chatgpt will try to make you happy. You want a green button here? You'll get a green button here. A designer instead will tell you it's a terrible idea and breaks accessibility.