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Not sure if I'd compare ChatGPT with a junior programmer. In my experience junior programmers tend to be builders. They will tend to code a lot of stuff and usu

by aflag 4y ago

Not sure if I'd compare ChatGPT with a junior programmer. In my experience junior programmers tend to be builders. They will tend to code a lot of stuff and usually get reasonable results, but making some bad decisions that more experienced developers have already gone through. Inexperienced developers need supervision because otherwise they will just create heaps of code that will be hard to maintain later. ChatGPT just doesn't do anything on its own and will never follow through with anything. So, it doesn't really need supervision. I feel like it's more like a professor or a very senior developer. Someone you'll consult with when you're having trouble. Obviously, our best specialists are still better than the AI, but if the current technology is perfected, it'd expect it to replace the specialist and not the junior programmer. Which obviously is a bit of a bleak future from a software engineer career's perspective.

ekidd 4y ago
> ChatGPT just doesn't do anything on its own and will never follow through with anything. Yeah, I should be clear: the specific context in which I often see junior developer quality performance is when I'm essentially "pair programming" with it. I can say, "Write a program that does X. No, there's a closed-form solution for that, so we shouldn't write it recursively. OK, now write some tests similar to the following. You have a bug in that function." I almost never need to actually write code—I can explain what I want and it will frequently do something plausible. The main limit seems to be the context window. And ChatGPT's tendency to be ignore corrections and simply restate the original code. Ironically, to get the best results, I need to call on my experience and my people skills. Someone who knew nothing about programming wouldn't be able to "mentor" the chatbot successfully.
- aflag 4y ago
  Yes, I see what you mean. But just like you're being less productive when you try to instruct someone else on how to do things, if you follow that path with ChatGPT you'll likely be less productive too. I think ChatGPT adds more value when you ask things you don't quite know or figured out yet. Sometimes it hallucinates, which you can usually figure out quickly, but sometimes it does give good insights which would take longer for you to get than the time you lose by checking hallucinations. It's a decent advisor. It's a rubber duck on steroids. I guess copilot is a bit different in that regard though, I haven't used that much, but I heard it's good at writing unit tests. PS: you should probably not refer to a someone else as "it", specially if you are more senior than them.
  - ekidd 4y ago
    The only entity I'm referring to as "it" in the above post is ChatGPT. That seems like the most appropriate pronoun to me? No existing AI system seems to have achieved personhood in a sense that would incline me to refer to it as "they." And when asked, GPT 4 informs me that "as an AI model I have no preferences" (of course), but it suggests that "it" would be appropriate. Do you have an argument why using "it" to refer to a current-generation AI persona is inappropriate? If so, I would be genuinely interested to hear it!
    - aflag 4y ago
      Ah, that's good. I thought some of the references were regarding the engineer you were pairing with.

by aflag 4y ago

ekidd 4y ago

> ChatGPT just doesn't do anything on its own and will never follow through with anything. Yeah, I should be clear: the specific context in which I often see junior developer quality performance is when I'm essentially "pair programming" with it. I can say, "Write a program that does X. No, there's a closed-form solution for that, so we shouldn't write it recursively. OK, now write some tests similar to the following. You have a bug in that function." I almost never need to actually write code—I can explain what I want and it will frequently do something plausible. The main limit seems to be the context window. And ChatGPT's tendency to be ignore corrections and simply restate the original code. Ironically, to get the best results, I need to call on my experience and my people skills. Someone who knew nothing about programming wouldn't be able to "mentor" the chatbot successfully.

aflag 4y ago
Yes, I see what you mean. But just like you're being less productive when you try to instruct someone else on how to do things, if you follow that path with ChatGPT you'll likely be less productive too. I think ChatGPT adds more value when you ask things you don't quite know or figured out yet. Sometimes it hallucinates, which you can usually figure out quickly, but sometimes it does give good insights which would take longer for you to get than the time you lose by checking hallucinations. It's a decent advisor. It's a rubber duck on steroids. I guess copilot is a bit different in that regard though, I haven't used that much, but I heard it's good at writing unit tests. PS: you should probably not refer to a someone else as "it", specially if you are more senior than them.
- ekidd 4y ago
  The only entity I'm referring to as "it" in the above post is ChatGPT. That seems like the most appropriate pronoun to me? No existing AI system seems to have achieved personhood in a sense that would incline me to refer to it as "they." And when asked, GPT 4 informs me that "as an AI model I have no preferences" (of course), but it suggests that "it" would be appropriate. Do you have an argument why using "it" to refer to a current-generation AI persona is inappropriate? If so, I would be genuinely interested to hear it!
  - aflag 4y ago
    Ah, that's good. I thought some of the references were regarding the engineer you were pairing with.