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This is such a strange question. $20/month is a mouse fart of an expense, and it buys you access to what is probably the most important tech development in dec

This is such a strange question. $20/month is a mouse fart of an expense, and it buys you access to what is probably the most important tech development in decades. And even when you run out of GPT-4 time, it gets you full access to the previous GPT-3.5, pre-turbo pruning. I haven't had a single busy-please-wait time since I subbed, and that alone has paid for years of the $20/month price. [edit] I will add that even though the article is barely more than a few (rather oddly chosen, IMO) prompts, it is useful for folks to be able to see 3.5/4 side by side.

ilaksh 4y ago
It's a ridiculous question. But people are dumb. Wait 15 years or something and the question will be something like, "Should you pay $100 per month for a 1000 IQ exocortex that is fully integrated with on-demand AI experts in every field and seamlessly inserts useful thoughts and abilities into your daily life?"
- tester457 4y ago
  You're right that this article's question is ridiculous but I worry about transhumanism and the abuse such technology will bring. I rather keep my exocortex on the outside before getting subtle advertisements as thoughts and genuinely believing they are my own desires.
addisonl 4y ago
> pre-turbo pruning I hadn’t heard this part, can you expand?
- 0x008 4y ago
  the standard GPT3 version used in chatgpt is gpt3.5-turbo. it is a pruned version of GPT3 (trimmed down), to have faster response times and less computational cost.
  - addisonl 4y ago
    Yeah my understanding was 3.5-turbo was always the model behind chatGPT. There is no 3.5 non-turbo model in OpenAI’s playground at least or in their documentation: https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-3-5 https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-3-5
    - Baeocystin 4y ago
      It is, now. Their first paid chat model is what is now called 'Legacy' in the paid chat model selection pulldown. It performs noticeably better than the turbo version in all cases except for generation speed. Not vastly. But enough of a difference to make it worth mentioning.
    - 0x008 4y ago
      I think it’s called davinci
spaceman_2020 4y ago
I’m absolutely amazed that there are people on HN who make their living in tech and won’t spring for the plus version. At the very least, you owe it to your basic curiosity if not your career.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  Can you give some examples of utility provided by it for someone competent who works in tech?
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    At the very least, it’s the fastest way to pick up a new framework or package you’re not familiar with. You can ask questions about the framework instead of digging through documentation. A massive productivity boost at the very least.
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      I strongly disagree. I'll give you a good example. We recently migrated away from Plesk with Apache to a server running NGINX. I wanted to get Active Collab running on the new server, so I fed the documentation for installing Active Collab into it, which included the URL rewrite lines for the NGINX configuration. What it presented to me on every attempt, and I tried this for days, was complete gibberish that hallucinated all kinds of things that didn't exist, and it didn't even run as an NGINX configuration. All that time wasted versus just writing an NGINX configuration. Who is seriously going to trust this to do anything high-level if it can't even write a basic NGINX config? If you don't know the framework then your Dunning-Kruger is in full-effect, you don't even know what you don't know, and blindly trust the output because it resembles something similar to what you might expect. I'm thoroughly unimpressed. The boilerplate tooling of twenty years ago didn't even use AI and was vastly superior. Another example: asking it what a product is, e.g., the tfpro P38EXMK2. It calls it a microphone preamplifier instead of a compressor, despite there being no preamps in it, it also hallucinates controls that don't exist, and misses the entire point of the product. I also asked for step-by-step instructions on exporting data from one program to another, and it invoked all kinds of menu options that don't exist, and didn't take into consideration file incompatibilities in terms of imports. Due to the immense hype, I have spent a lot of time trying to get something rational and sensible out of it that's actually a good use of time, but alas I have found nothing. IMO, it's the next crypto. All hype and very little actual utility for serious users. It's a cool toy for people who don't know what they're doing, but I'm sure that with a little experience, they would understand the sentiment.
selfhoster11 4y ago
$20 is a mouse fart if you have a real, well paying job. If you’re a teenager or a poorly compensated worker (or just outside the rich West), you’re SOL.
- shahar2k 4y ago
  that's when you get together with multiple teenagers to share an account
hammyhavoc 4y ago
When people are choosing between heating and eating, and a lot of folks are struggling, "$20/month is a mouse fart of an expense" is evidently coming from a very privileged place. Sure, it may be to you, and your comment may indeed be well-intentioned, but it's clear that you didn't pause long enough to consider that demographics, ideas of value, as well as disposable income, varies drastically.

ilaksh 4y ago

It's a ridiculous question. But people are dumb. Wait 15 years or something and the question will be something like, "Should you pay $100 per month for a 1000 IQ exocortex that is fully integrated with on-demand AI experts in every field and seamlessly inserts useful thoughts and abilities into your daily life?"

tester457 4y ago
You're right that this article's question is ridiculous but I worry about transhumanism and the abuse such technology will bring. I rather keep my exocortex on the outside before getting subtle advertisements as thoughts and genuinely believing they are my own desires.

addisonl 4y ago

> pre-turbo pruning I hadn’t heard this part, can you expand?

0x008 4y ago
the standard GPT3 version used in chatgpt is gpt3.5-turbo. it is a pruned version of GPT3 (trimmed down), to have faster response times and less computational cost.
- addisonl 4y ago
  Yeah my understanding was 3.5-turbo was always the model behind chatGPT. There is no 3.5 non-turbo model in OpenAI’s playground at least or in their documentation: https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-3-5 https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-3-5
  - Baeocystin 4y ago
    It is, now. Their first paid chat model is what is now called 'Legacy' in the paid chat model selection pulldown. It performs noticeably better than the turbo version in all cases except for generation speed. Not vastly. But enough of a difference to make it worth mentioning.
  - 0x008 4y ago
    I think it’s called davinci

spaceman_2020 4y ago

I’m absolutely amazed that there are people on HN who make their living in tech and won’t spring for the plus version. At the very least, you owe it to your basic curiosity if not your career.

hammyhavoc 4y ago
Can you give some examples of utility provided by it for someone competent who works in tech?
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  At the very least, it’s the fastest way to pick up a new framework or package you’re not familiar with. You can ask questions about the framework instead of digging through documentation. A massive productivity boost at the very least.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    I strongly disagree. I'll give you a good example. We recently migrated away from Plesk with Apache to a server running NGINX. I wanted to get Active Collab running on the new server, so I fed the documentation for installing Active Collab into it, which included the URL rewrite lines for the NGINX configuration. What it presented to me on every attempt, and I tried this for days, was complete gibberish that hallucinated all kinds of things that didn't exist, and it didn't even run as an NGINX configuration. All that time wasted versus just writing an NGINX configuration. Who is seriously going to trust this to do anything high-level if it can't even write a basic NGINX config? If you don't know the framework then your Dunning-Kruger is in full-effect, you don't even know what you don't know, and blindly trust the output because it resembles something similar to what you might expect. I'm thoroughly unimpressed. The boilerplate tooling of twenty years ago didn't even use AI and was vastly superior. Another example: asking it what a product is, e.g., the tfpro P38EXMK2. It calls it a microphone preamplifier instead of a compressor, despite there being no preamps in it, it also hallucinates controls that don't exist, and misses the entire point of the product. I also asked for step-by-step instructions on exporting data from one program to another, and it invoked all kinds of menu options that don't exist, and didn't take into consideration file incompatibilities in terms of imports. Due to the immense hype, I have spent a lot of time trying to get something rational and sensible out of it that's actually a good use of time, but alas I have found nothing. IMO, it's the next crypto. All hype and very little actual utility for serious users. It's a cool toy for people who don't know what they're doing, but I'm sure that with a little experience, they would understand the sentiment.

selfhoster11 4y ago

$20 is a mouse fart if you have a real, well paying job. If you’re a teenager or a poorly compensated worker (or just outside the rich West), you’re SOL.

shahar2k 4y ago
that's when you get together with multiple teenagers to share an account

hammyhavoc 4y ago

When people are choosing between heating and eating, and a lot of folks are struggling, "$20/month is a mouse fart of an expense" is evidently coming from a very privileged place. Sure, it may be to you, and your comment may indeed be well-intentioned, but it's clear that you didn't pause long enough to consider that demographics, ideas of value, as well as disposable income, varies drastically.