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SO is a toxic cesspool, especially for people new to programming or just looking to learn. If ChatGPT and other AI tools can get the job done without resorting

by jhack 3y ago

SO is a toxic cesspool, especially for people new to programming or just looking to learn. If ChatGPT and other AI tools can get the job done without resorting to asking anything from the SO “community”, that’s a victory.

lewhoo 3y ago
It has also helped me hundreds of times.
- mteam88 3y ago
  Because you asked a question? Or because someone else did?
  - lewhoo 3y ago
    The latter. But I suppose it's typical. A given problem usually emerges for thousands of people so it's not surprising I was never the first to ask.
  - shanebellone 3y ago
    Does the distinction actually matter?
  - yeputons 3y ago
    For me, both. I search for something generic, either an official manual, a bug report or a StackOverflow's answer pops up. I have a specific narrow question, I'm unable to google the answer, I ask, a more knowledgeable person appears and ties all the loose ends together in I way I have never thought of.
ryanbrunner 3y ago
The problem is if you solve the problem of not needing the community by training an AI on community content, your community will leave and then you're out of training data. AI is impressive, but I'm unconvinced it can answer truly novel programming questions.
- cle 3y ago
  Don't worry, between GitHub and VS Code, there's plenty of training data for Microsoft and OpenAI.
- alecco 3y ago
  ChatGPT/OpenAssistant/etc users are giving the models an immense amount of feedback.
yeputons 3y ago
> especially for people new to programming or just looking to learn Yes, StackOverflow is not for beginners at all. It's for fairly narrow technical questions. Maybe AI may assist in asking a good question or breaking down a big question into narrow on-topics ones.
chx 3y ago
ChatGPT can not do anything especially not in programming. All it can provide is how the answer would sound or look like. Be prepared for an absolute avalanche of bugs and security holes no one alive would've made. I make my living from debugging so I welcome the new job security but it's a massive net negative for society, no question about that.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > All it can provide is how the answer would sound or look like. This includes providing correct answers, because by definition, a correct answer sounds exactly like it would sound like.
  - chx 3y ago
    A broken clock is right twice a day. The answer still has zero information value, even if it is accidentally the correct one.
- spaceman_2020 3y ago
  I asked it to write a simple function to copy text to clipboard. It unecessarily created a async function and forgot to pass down the text as a variable. Next, it tried to use AlpineJS to create tooltips with NextJS which is really not supported and couldn't fix the resulting bugs. For sure, it's better than nothing, but you've got to be at least somewhat competent before you start copy-pasting code from it blindly.

by jhack 3y ago

lewhoo 3y ago

It has also helped me hundreds of times.

mteam88 3y ago
Because you asked a question? Or because someone else did?
- lewhoo 3y ago
  The latter. But I suppose it's typical. A given problem usually emerges for thousands of people so it's not surprising I was never the first to ask.
- shanebellone 3y ago
  Does the distinction actually matter?
- yeputons 3y ago
  For me, both. I search for something generic, either an official manual, a bug report or a StackOverflow's answer pops up. I have a specific narrow question, I'm unable to google the answer, I ask, a more knowledgeable person appears and ties all the loose ends together in I way I have never thought of.

ryanbrunner 3y ago

The problem is if you solve the problem of not needing the community by training an AI on community content, your community will leave and then you're out of training data. AI is impressive, but I'm unconvinced it can answer truly novel programming questions.

cle 3y ago
Don't worry, between GitHub and VS Code, there's plenty of training data for Microsoft and OpenAI.
alecco 3y ago
ChatGPT/OpenAssistant/etc users are giving the models an immense amount of feedback.

yeputons 3y ago

> especially for people new to programming or just looking to learn Yes, StackOverflow is not for beginners at all. It's for fairly narrow technical questions. Maybe AI may assist in asking a good question or breaking down a big question into narrow on-topics ones.

chx 3y ago

ChatGPT can not do anything especially not in programming. All it can provide is how the answer would sound or look like. Be prepared for an absolute avalanche of bugs and security holes no one alive would've made. I make my living from debugging so I welcome the new job security but it's a massive net negative for society, no question about that.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
> All it can provide is how the answer would sound or look like. This includes providing correct answers, because by definition, a correct answer sounds exactly like it would sound like.
- chx 3y ago
  A broken clock is right twice a day. The answer still has zero information value, even if it is accidentally the correct one.
spaceman_2020 3y ago
I asked it to write a simple function to copy text to clipboard. It unecessarily created a async function and forgot to pass down the text as a variable. Next, it tried to use AlpineJS to create tooltips with NextJS which is really not supported and couldn't fix the resulting bugs. For sure, it's better than nothing, but you've got to be at least somewhat competent before you start copy-pasting code from it blindly.