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> You can program GPT in English. > Let me repeat that: You can program GPT in English. ENGLISH! What does that mean to "program GPT"? Do you mean program (sof

> You can program GPT in English. > Let me repeat that: You can program GPT in English. ENGLISH! What does that mean to "program GPT"? Do you mean program (software) USING GPT? I thought we already had COBOL, which is pretty much like English so business people can use it. Same for SQL. And don't we already have lots of low-code or no-code tools? Why do we need to program with ChatGPT if we already are beyond programming?

brookst 4y ago
Not the person you replied to, but I see it the same way. GPT is an English (and other natural language) compiler. Not in the sense that you get a computer program out (though you can), but in the sense that it can automate anything without even needing a programming language, compiler, and domain specific UX. Low code and no-code tools still require thinking like a programmer. You define what you need to do, then implement, then get results. GPT often lets you go directly from spec to results. If the goal is programming, GPT is nothing special. If the goal is quickly reasoning over very abstract instructions, it’s amazing. The trick is seeing the new use cases. It really does come back to the GUI revolution: if you want to list files in a directory, the CLI is just as good, maybe better. But GUI makes photoshop possible. GPT makes it possible to say “summarize the status emails I sent over the past year, with one section per quarter and three bullet points per section”. And the magic is that is the programming.
newswasboring 4y ago
> What does that mean to "program GPT"? Do you mean program (software) USING GPT? A sibling comment already explained the second part of the question, but there is something I find more exciting. You can program GPT, as in you can tell it to change its behavior. The innumerable "jail break" prompts are just programs written in English which modify GPT itself. Like macros in lisp I guess. The first time I truly saw this potential was when someone showed me you don't actually have to change the temperature of chatGPT in code, you can just tell it to give low and high temperature answers in the prompt[1]. That's programming the model itself in english. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34801574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34801574

brookst 4y ago

Not the person you replied to, but I see it the same way. GPT is an English (and other natural language) compiler. Not in the sense that you get a computer program out (though you can), but in the sense that it can automate anything without even needing a programming language, compiler, and domain specific UX. Low code and no-code tools still require thinking like a programmer. You define what you need to do, then implement, then get results. GPT often lets you go directly from spec to results. If the goal is programming, GPT is nothing special. If the goal is quickly reasoning over very abstract instructions, it’s amazing. The trick is seeing the new use cases. It really does come back to the GUI revolution: if you want to list files in a directory, the CLI is just as good, maybe better. But GUI makes photoshop possible. GPT makes it possible to say “summarize the status emails I sent over the past year, with one section per quarter and three bullet points per section”. And the magic is that is the programming.

newswasboring 4y ago

> What does that mean to "program GPT"? Do you mean program (software) USING GPT? A sibling comment already explained the second part of the question, but there is something I find more exciting. You can program GPT, as in you can tell it to change its behavior. The innumerable "jail break" prompts are just programs written in English which modify GPT itself. Like macros in lisp I guess. The first time I truly saw this potential was when someone showed me you don't actually have to change the temperature of chatGPT in code, you can just tell it to give low and high temperature answers in the prompt[1]. That's programming the model itself in english. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34801574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34801574