14 ms·

Useful, but still wouldn't count on it. With respect to GPT etc. as a copilot, the current dialogue seems to focus on "ask for GPT to generate code to do X" th

Useful, but still wouldn't count on it. With respect to GPT etc. as a copilot, the current dialogue seems to focus on "ask for GPT to generate code to do X" then "just paste in the error message to fix bugs in the code GPT generates" A.) Why is GPT generating code that results in simple compiler errors (that is why GPT probably shouldn't be used to generate any code / replace devs for real projects yet), and B.) error messages are (just guessing here) probably <1% of the actual errors in most codebases. I personally know of a few large companies laying off devs over this. IMO, the tech debt we're going to see in 6 months will probably be huge. Good now to start a staffing agency of human experts who can come in and fix this type of problem (extricating massive amounts of code generated by GPT without starting from scratch) because there will be a bunch of fires to put out and those fires will be worth $

viscanti 3y ago
If an LLM hallucinates lines of code that can't even compile, I suppose it could also hallucinate logic issues which are more difficult to track down.
- matisseverduyn 3y ago
  Definitely. QA at a snails pace should still be the focus here for a while, but that's not what I'm observing in the real world. Just rush, pressure, layoffs. At least this sort of behavior keeps humans employed long-term.
- runlaszlorun 3y ago
  I have limited experience even trying. But I did try it for some fundamental JS Web API stuff sans framework or library like IndexedDB, web sockets, and a basic, basic todo like app. Neither of those three would function nor would they throw an error. Prompts to correct itself would not improve things. So I did the natural thing and started to debug myself. At which point, I couldn’t help but ask myself why I was debugging machine generated code when I could not be lazy and actually build it from first principles.
david2ndaccount 3y ago
> I personally know of a few large companies laying off devs over this. They’re laying people off and replacing them with chat gpt generating code? That seems... aggressive. Or are they laying off devs who copy-pasted gpt-generate code?
- matisseverduyn 3y ago
  Replacing devs with LLMs.
  - blondin 3y ago
    color me skeptical. what are those large companies that are replacing devs with LLMs?
    - broast 3y ago
      I think it's more natural than you might think. For example, my company laid off a lot of people to try to be profitable, and now they pay me more but I have a smaller team with tighter deadlines. I have no choice but to use gpt for a lot of my analysis, design, and code- which I've gotten pretty used to over the past year in my hobby time The way I see it, if you code without it, you won't compete with the speed and value. And they are not going to back fill those roles
      - qumpis 3y ago
        Can you give some of your usecases? Is it involved stuff or mostly boilerplate? Curious how a team lead uses this tech.
        runlaszlorun 3y ago
        I’m not knocking the parent post here for not replying. But of the 4 or so times on HN that I’ve seen someone been asked to provide detail, I haven’t seen a single answer. I’m not on here a ton but do people tend not to check back? I’ll admit my bias of having seen enough vacuous industry hype over the years to be naturally skeptical. Heck, I worked in a marketing department once where I helped manufacture the stuff (forgive me father for I have sinned, in my defense they did fire me after three months in a layoff). But my few personal experiences with ChatGPT were pretty disappointing and I’m actually looking for someone to tell me otherwise.
sublinear 3y ago
> IMO, the tech debt we're going to see in 6 months will probably be huge. Good now to start a staffing agency of human experts who can come in and fix this type of problem (extricating massive amounts of code generated by GPT without starting from scratch) because there will be a bunch of fires to put out and those fires will be worth $ Nah they deserve to eat shit and the staffing agencies hired to fix the bad AI code will undoubtedly be people abroad who barely speak English and will only tangle it up worse. I would actually pay to be a fly on the wall in those meetings listening to people lose their minds in frustration.

viscanti 3y ago

If an LLM hallucinates lines of code that can't even compile, I suppose it could also hallucinate logic issues which are more difficult to track down.

matisseverduyn 3y ago
Definitely. QA at a snails pace should still be the focus here for a while, but that's not what I'm observing in the real world. Just rush, pressure, layoffs. At least this sort of behavior keeps humans employed long-term.
runlaszlorun 3y ago
I have limited experience even trying. But I did try it for some fundamental JS Web API stuff sans framework or library like IndexedDB, web sockets, and a basic, basic todo like app. Neither of those three would function nor would they throw an error. Prompts to correct itself would not improve things. So I did the natural thing and started to debug myself. At which point, I couldn’t help but ask myself why I was debugging machine generated code when I could not be lazy and actually build it from first principles.

david2ndaccount 3y ago

> I personally know of a few large companies laying off devs over this. They’re laying people off and replacing them with chat gpt generating code? That seems... aggressive. Or are they laying off devs who copy-pasted gpt-generate code?

matisseverduyn 3y ago
Replacing devs with LLMs.
- blondin 3y ago
  color me skeptical. what are those large companies that are replacing devs with LLMs?
  - broast 3y ago
    I think it's more natural than you might think. For example, my company laid off a lot of people to try to be profitable, and now they pay me more but I have a smaller team with tighter deadlines. I have no choice but to use gpt for a lot of my analysis, design, and code- which I've gotten pretty used to over the past year in my hobby time The way I see it, if you code without it, you won't compete with the speed and value. And they are not going to back fill those roles
    - qumpis 3y ago
      Can you give some of your usecases? Is it involved stuff or mostly boilerplate? Curious how a team lead uses this tech.
      - runlaszlorun 3y ago
        I’m not knocking the parent post here for not replying. But of the 4 or so times on HN that I’ve seen someone been asked to provide detail, I haven’t seen a single answer. I’m not on here a ton but do people tend not to check back? I’ll admit my bias of having seen enough vacuous industry hype over the years to be naturally skeptical. Heck, I worked in a marketing department once where I helped manufacture the stuff (forgive me father for I have sinned, in my defense they did fire me after three months in a layoff). But my few personal experiences with ChatGPT were pretty disappointing and I’m actually looking for someone to tell me otherwise.

sublinear 3y ago

> IMO, the tech debt we're going to see in 6 months will probably be huge. Good now to start a staffing agency of human experts who can come in and fix this type of problem (extricating massive amounts of code generated by GPT without starting from scratch) because there will be a bunch of fires to put out and those fires will be worth $ Nah they deserve to eat shit and the staffing agencies hired to fix the bad AI code will undoubtedly be people abroad who barely speak English and will only tangle it up worse. I would actually pay to be a fly on the wall in those meetings listening to people lose their minds in frustration.