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Lol and with the immediate downvotes I got for pointing that out say the masses agree with you. I mean look, I get it, if you're in an industry where ChatGPT is

by zamnos 4y ago

Lol and with the immediate downvotes I got for pointing that out say the masses agree with you. I mean look, I get it, if you're in an industry where ChatGPT isn't immediately useful (it's shit at hard-level leet code questions; it's a hosted solution so your company's IT policies should be stopping you from submitting proprietary data to it, and so on) then all the hype is unjustified. But where this thing is already banging out emails way faster than an unassisted human, it's already essential and companies that don't raise their productivty-per-employee are going to get left behind. If I said Internet access was an essential (especially here) few would disagree with me. But is it really? It's only existed for a few decades, all of humanity lived many, many fulfilling lives so it seems it shouldn't be, but here we are.

wizzwizz4 4y ago
> But where this thing is already banging out emails way faster than an unassisted human, … your system is completely broken. Emails are for communicating between people: if they're not being used for that, you need to fix that problem first. > companies that don't raise their productivty-per-employee are going to get left behind Can you give an example of a field where this would actually happen?
- zamnos 4y ago
  > … your system is completely broken. Emails are for communicating between people: if they're not being used for that, you need to fix that problem first. Can you explain a bit more? I don't think I'm understanding your point. If person A writing emails, to be read by the human that receives it, is able to write 3 emails an hour, vs person B writing 9 emails each of similar complexity to those 3 per hour, person B is 3x as productive, delivers 3x the value to the company and ChatGPT is easily worth $20/hour to both them and the company. > Can you give an example of a field where this would actually happen? From the end of January, ChatGPT Is Already Indispensable for One Profession - Realtors. https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/tech/chatgpt-real-estate-realtors https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/tech/chatgpt-real-est... . My partner is sitting next to me right now as I procrastinate on HN being blown away by the industry-specific outline ChatGPT generated for the training she's developing for her company. She says the outline it developed in minutes would have taken 2-4 hours to write, and they're far from dumb and isn't lazy. If consider a company that just generates training all day, it's only a matter of time when a 10-person AI-assisted company is able to compete with a 50-person unassisted company, and on a way lower budget. (Yes, that does already happen today, and yes, mythical man month and 9-women making a baby in 1-month, and the penalty for increased communication required by the increased team size means that adding employees to a project makes it slower are all a thing, but if we can accept that some 10,000 person companies are just able to produce more, even if we may not see it externally), vs some 10 people companies, then we're just debating the exact numbers and management styles for comparison. Look I know that ChatGPT can't solve hard level leetcode problems yet but talk to any programmers who already find CoPilot indispensible, and ask them if they feel it's helped their productivity. Fine sure, it won't help with the actual hard part of programming, debugging and then fixing really hairy bugs (or maybe the hard part is actually the bit where you have to talk to your software's customers and figure out what their requirements are, vs what they say they are), and while it hallucinates it's not to be totally trusted. But just yesterday I used ChatGPT to just tell me the answer of how to properly quote bash strings for my use case. The minutes I spent waiting for the answer is fewer than the minutes it would have taken me to figure out, and far less frustrating and context-distrupting than the alternative, leaving me able to deal with the bigger problem I'm trying to solve rather than worry about the finer points of ", ' and `, in a mysql -e command line using with me-supplied variables (ie no bobby tables).
  - wizzwizz4 4y ago
    > each of similar complexity to those 3 per hour, person B is 3x as productive, delivers 3x the value to the company That's where you've lost me. Emails are not usually a source of value, and their usefulness is not usually measured in complexity. I can send about 1 email per hour. This is a bottleneck for my ability to get stuff done in my personal life, but has not affected my work, because I've been fortunate enough to only have worked in places with sensible communications policies. ChatGPT would not help with the email issues in my personal life, because it simply does not know what should be in the emails. Until they come up with a telepathy plugin for ChatGPT, it's not going to solve the email problem: only bury it under a pile of subtle miscommunication and illusions-of-transparency. (And if they come up with a telepathy plugin, I see no reason ChatGPT should even be in the loop any more.) > Realtors. … Yeah, okay, I can see that. --- > Look I know that ChatGPT can't solve hard level leetcode problems yet I was under the impression that it could. Leetcode problems are the kind of thing I'd expect a GPT model to be good at. > But just yesterday I used ChatGPT to just tell me the answer of how to properly quote bash strings for my use case. How did you know it was correct? Whenever I come back to Bash, I have to spend several minutes double-checking the meanings of the various quotes and variable substitution syntaxes (especially heredocs and nowdocs)… but it only takes a few minutes, and then that information is in my head, I am confident about it, and I have the reference to hand if I need to double-check something. https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Quoting.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Quoting.h... https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Shell-Expansions.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Shell-Exp... https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/ https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/ With ChatGPT, how do you know it hasn't just made something up, and introduced some kind of subtle security vulnerability into your script? Perhaps a construction so common that it's present in most scripts in the training data – except it's only a vulnerability in your specific use-case. The problems that ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot can solve are either interview questions, or defects in our tools. I see people using them for Bash, Django, certain Java libraries… These systems are strictly dominated by a choice of better tools, and with the choice of a better tool, mostly stop being useful.
    - zamnos 4y ago

by zamnos 4y ago

wizzwizz4 4y ago

> But where this thing is already banging out emails way faster than an unassisted human, … your system is completely broken. Emails are for communicating between people: if they're not being used for that, you need to fix that problem first. > companies that don't raise their productivty-per-employee are going to get left behind Can you give an example of a field where this would actually happen?

zamnos 4y ago
> … your system is completely broken. Emails are for communicating between people: if they're not being used for that, you need to fix that problem first. Can you explain a bit more? I don't think I'm understanding your point. If person A writing emails, to be read by the human that receives it, is able to write 3 emails an hour, vs person B writing 9 emails each of similar complexity to those 3 per hour, person B is 3x as productive, delivers 3x the value to the company and ChatGPT is easily worth $20/hour to both them and the company. > Can you give an example of a field where this would actually happen? From the end of January, ChatGPT Is Already Indispensable for One Profession - Realtors. https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/tech/chatgpt-real-estate-realtors https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/tech/chatgpt-real-est... . My partner is sitting next to me right now as I procrastinate on HN being blown away by the industry-specific outline ChatGPT generated for the training she's developing for her company. She says the outline it developed in minutes would have taken 2-4 hours to write, and they're far from dumb and isn't lazy. If consider a company that just generates training all day, it's only a matter of time when a 10-person AI-assisted company is able to compete with a 50-person unassisted company, and on a way lower budget. (Yes, that does already happen today, and yes, mythical man month and 9-women making a baby in 1-month, and the penalty for increased communication required by the increased team size means that adding employees to a project makes it slower are all a thing, but if we can accept that some 10,000 person companies are just able to produce more, even if we may not see it externally), vs some 10 people companies, then we're just debating the exact numbers and management styles for comparison. Look I know that ChatGPT can't solve hard level leetcode problems yet but talk to any programmers who already find CoPilot indispensible, and ask them if they feel it's helped their productivity. Fine sure, it won't help with the actual hard part of programming, debugging and then fixing really hairy bugs (or maybe the hard part is actually the bit where you have to talk to your software's customers and figure out what their requirements are, vs what they say they are), and while it hallucinates it's not to be totally trusted. But just yesterday I used ChatGPT to just tell me the answer of how to properly quote bash strings for my use case. The minutes I spent waiting for the answer is fewer than the minutes it would have taken me to figure out, and far less frustrating and context-distrupting than the alternative, leaving me able to deal with the bigger problem I'm trying to solve rather than worry about the finer points of ", ' and `, in a mysql -e command line using with me-supplied variables (ie no bobby tables).
- wizzwizz4 4y ago
  > each of similar complexity to those 3 per hour, person B is 3x as productive, delivers 3x the value to the company That's where you've lost me. Emails are not usually a source of value, and their usefulness is not usually measured in complexity. I can send about 1 email per hour. This is a bottleneck for my ability to get stuff done in my personal life, but has not affected my work, because I've been fortunate enough to only have worked in places with sensible communications policies. ChatGPT would not help with the email issues in my personal life, because it simply does not know what should be in the emails. Until they come up with a telepathy plugin for ChatGPT, it's not going to solve the email problem: only bury it under a pile of subtle miscommunication and illusions-of-transparency. (And if they come up with a telepathy plugin, I see no reason ChatGPT should even be in the loop any more.) > Realtors. … Yeah, okay, I can see that. --- > Look I know that ChatGPT can't solve hard level leetcode problems yet I was under the impression that it could. Leetcode problems are the kind of thing I'd expect a GPT model to be good at. > But just yesterday I used ChatGPT to just tell me the answer of how to properly quote bash strings for my use case. How did you know it was correct? Whenever I come back to Bash, I have to spend several minutes double-checking the meanings of the various quotes and variable substitution syntaxes (especially heredocs and nowdocs)… but it only takes a few minutes, and then that information is in my head, I am confident about it, and I have the reference to hand if I need to double-check something. https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Quoting.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Quoting.h... https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Shell-Expansions.html https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Shell-Exp... https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/ https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/ With ChatGPT, how do you know it hasn't just made something up, and introduced some kind of subtle security vulnerability into your script? Perhaps a construction so common that it's present in most scripts in the training data – except it's only a vulnerability in your specific use-case. The problems that ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot can solve are either interview questions, or defects in our tools. I see people using them for Bash, Django, certain Java libraries… These systems are strictly dominated by a choice of better tools, and with the choice of a better tool, mostly stop being useful.
  - zamnos 4y ago