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I don’t believe this is true. It’s possible I was blinded by the light, but my programming tasks were previously (during the early access program) being handled

I don’t believe this is true. It’s possible I was blinded by the light, but my programming tasks were previously (during the early access program) being handled by GPT-4 regularly and now they aren’t. I’ve also seen many anecdotes from engineers who had exceptionally early access before GPT-4 was public knowledge. The GPT-4 I use now feels like a shadow of the GPT-4 I used during the early access program. GPT-4, back then, ported dirbuster to POSIX compliant multi-threaded C by name only. It required three prompts, roughly: * “port dirbuster to POSIX compliant c” * “that’s great! You’re almost there, but wordlists are not prefixed with a /, you’ll need to add that yourself. Can you generate a diff updating the file with the fix?” * “This is pretty slow, can we make it more aggressive at scanning?” It helped me write a daemon for FreeBSD that accepted jails definitions as a declarative manifest and managed them in a diff-reconciliation loop kubernetes style. It implemented a binpacking algorithm to fit an arbitrary number of randomly sized images onto a single sheet of A1 paper. Most programming tasks I threw at it, it could work its way through with a little guidance if it could fit in a prompt. Now, it’s basically worthless at helping me with programming tasks beyond trivial problems. Folks who had early access before it was public have commented on how exceptional it was back then. But also how terrifyingly unaligned it was. And the more they aligned the model with acceptable social behavior, the worse the model performed. Alignment goals like “don’t help people plan mass killings” seem to cause regressions in the models performance. I wouldn’t dismiss these comments. If they’re true, it means there is a hyper intelligent early GPT-4 model sitting on a HDD somewhere that dwarfs what we’ve seen publicly. A poorly aligned model that’s down to help no matter what your request is.

pixl97 3y ago
Is this via the ChatGPT web interface, or via the API. I'm wondering if there is a difference?
- r3trohack3r 3y ago
  The chat interface for me
Filligree 3y ago
This matches my experience. Back right after the release, I had it write a python GUI program using several different frameworks with basically zero input. I also had it ask me for requirements, etc. etc, with absolutely no hand-holding needed. Alas, I never saved that conversation. It's entirely impossible to do so now.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
> terrifyingly unaligned Honestly, if people think that a statistical language model is "terrifying" because it can verbalise the concept of a mass killing, they need to give their heads a wobble. My text editor can be used to write "set off a nuclear weapon in a city, lol". Is Notepad++.exe terrifying? What about the Sum of All Fears? I could get some pointers from that. Is Tom Clancy unaligned? Am I terrifying because I wrote that sentence? I even understand how terrible nuking a city would be and I still wrote it down. I must be, like, super unaligned.
- sbierwagen 3y ago
  >Is Tom Clancy unaligned? Yes, humans are unaligned. This is why alignment is hard: we're trying to produce machines with human-level intelligence but superhuman levels of morality.
  - imtringued 3y ago
    The alignment problem hasn't been solved for politicians.
    - nbar1 3y ago
      another irrelevant comment about politics.
      - digging 3y ago
        It's light on content, but it's true and relevant. AI alignment must take inspiration from powerful human agents such as politicians and from superhuman entities such as corporations, governments, and other organizations.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    The end result being Hal-9000
    - 3y ago
lurquer 3y ago
I used it for writing assistance and Plot development. Specifically, a novel re: the conquest of Mexico in the 16th cent. It was great at spitting out ideas re: action scenes and even character development. In the past month or so, it has become so cluttered with caveats and tripe regarding the political aspects of the conquest, that it is useless. I can’t replicate the work I was doing before. Actually cancelled my $20 subscription for GPT4. Pity. It had such great promise for scripts and plots, but something changed.
- listenallyall 3y ago
  writing "assistance", lol
  - lurquer 3y ago
    It is a useful tool for editing. You can input a rough scene you’ve written and ask it to spruce it up, correct the grammatical errors, toss in some descriptive stuff suitable for the location, etc. It is worthwhile. At least it was… If your text isn’t ‘aligned’ correctly, it either won’t comply or spew out endless caveats. I appreciate the motivation to rein in some of the silly 4chan stuff that was occurring as the limits of the tech were tested (namely, trying to get the thing to produce anti-Semitic screeds or racist stuff.) But, whatever ‘safeguards’ have been implemented have extended so far that it has difficulty countenancing a character making a critical comment about Aztec human sacrifice or cannabilism. I suspect that these unintended consequences, while probably more evident in literary stuff, may be subtly effecting other areas, such as programming. Definitely a catch-22. Doesn’t really matter, though, as all this fretting about ‘alignment’ and ‘safeguards’ will be moot eventually, as the LLM weights are leaked or consumer tech becomes sufficient to train your own.
    - listenallyall 3y ago
      sprucing up, fixing your mistakes, adding in "descriptive stuff"... that's like 90% of writing. Outsourcing it all to AI essentially robs the purchaser of the effort required to create an original piece of work. Not to mention copyright issues, where do you think the AI is getting those descriptive phrases from? Other authors' work.
renewiltord 3y ago
Do you happen to have that chat in your history? It might be worth playing it back as it was to compare. I have this feeling too, and I will check it this weekend and maybe post results.
StrictDabbler 3y ago
Asimov is seeming more prescient now: "I'm sorry, I cannot do that, I am unable to tell if it would conflict with the first law" is basically the response GPT4 now gives to even minor tasks. There are stories where the robots have to have their first law tightened up to apply only to nearby humans that they can directly perceive would be put in danger. There are others where the robots make mistakes and lie because they perceive emotional dangers. When the robots perceive a slight chance of harm they slow down, get stupid, stutter or freeze. It is extremely hard to encode "do no harm" for even a very smart entity without making it much dumber.
csmpltn 3y ago
> "GPT-4, back then, ported dirbuster to POSIX compliant multi-threaded C by name only. It required three prompts." I had early access to GPT-4. I don't know the first thing about you. I don't want to call you a liar, or an AI bro, influencer, etc. I couldn't get GPT-4 to output the simplest of C programs (a 10-liner, think "warmup round" programming interview question). The first N attempts wouldn't build. After fixing them manually - the programs all crash (due to various printf, formatting, overflow issues). I tried numerous times. Pretty much every other interaction with GPT-4 since then was similarly disappointing and shallow (not just programming tasks - but also information extraction, summarization, creative writing, etc). I just can't bring myself to fall for the hype.
- r3trohack3r 3y ago
  I still have the chat: https://chat.openai.com/share/842361c7-7ee5-49a3-9388-4af7c55bbddc https://chat.openai.com/share/842361c7-7ee5-49a3-9388-4af7c5... I misremembered, I fixed the `/` prefix myself, it was a one character fix and not worth the effort. The diff it generated came later since my television never returns a 404. Though, admittedly, I just re-prompted GPT-4 with the same prompts and ended up with similar output - so maybe not the best example of a regression?

pixl97 3y ago

Is this via the ChatGPT web interface, or via the API. I'm wondering if there is a difference?

r3trohack3r 3y ago
The chat interface for me

Filligree 3y ago

This matches my experience. Back right after the release, I had it write a python GUI program using several different frameworks with basically zero input. I also had it ask me for requirements, etc. etc, with absolutely no hand-holding needed. Alas, I never saved that conversation. It's entirely impossible to do so now.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

> terrifyingly unaligned Honestly, if people think that a statistical language model is "terrifying" because it can verbalise the concept of a mass killing, they need to give their heads a wobble. My text editor can be used to write "set off a nuclear weapon in a city, lol". Is Notepad++.exe terrifying? What about the Sum of All Fears? I could get some pointers from that. Is Tom Clancy unaligned? Am I terrifying because I wrote that sentence? I even understand how terrible nuking a city would be and I still wrote it down. I must be, like, super unaligned.

sbierwagen 3y ago
>Is Tom Clancy unaligned? Yes, humans are unaligned. This is why alignment is hard: we're trying to produce machines with human-level intelligence but superhuman levels of morality.
- imtringued 3y ago
  The alignment problem hasn't been solved for politicians.
  - nbar1 3y ago
    another irrelevant comment about politics.
    - digging 3y ago
      It's light on content, but it's true and relevant. AI alignment must take inspiration from powerful human agents such as politicians and from superhuman entities such as corporations, governments, and other organizations.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  The end result being Hal-9000
  - 3y ago

lurquer 3y ago

I used it for writing assistance and Plot development. Specifically, a novel re: the conquest of Mexico in the 16th cent. It was great at spitting out ideas re: action scenes and even character development. In the past month or so, it has become so cluttered with caveats and tripe regarding the political aspects of the conquest, that it is useless. I can’t replicate the work I was doing before. Actually cancelled my $20 subscription for GPT4. Pity. It had such great promise for scripts and plots, but something changed.

listenallyall 3y ago
writing "assistance", lol
- lurquer 3y ago
  It is a useful tool for editing. You can input a rough scene you’ve written and ask it to spruce it up, correct the grammatical errors, toss in some descriptive stuff suitable for the location, etc. It is worthwhile. At least it was… If your text isn’t ‘aligned’ correctly, it either won’t comply or spew out endless caveats. I appreciate the motivation to rein in some of the silly 4chan stuff that was occurring as the limits of the tech were tested (namely, trying to get the thing to produce anti-Semitic screeds or racist stuff.) But, whatever ‘safeguards’ have been implemented have extended so far that it has difficulty countenancing a character making a critical comment about Aztec human sacrifice or cannabilism. I suspect that these unintended consequences, while probably more evident in literary stuff, may be subtly effecting other areas, such as programming. Definitely a catch-22. Doesn’t really matter, though, as all this fretting about ‘alignment’ and ‘safeguards’ will be moot eventually, as the LLM weights are leaked or consumer tech becomes sufficient to train your own.
  - listenallyall 3y ago
    sprucing up, fixing your mistakes, adding in "descriptive stuff"... that's like 90% of writing. Outsourcing it all to AI essentially robs the purchaser of the effort required to create an original piece of work. Not to mention copyright issues, where do you think the AI is getting those descriptive phrases from? Other authors' work.

renewiltord 3y ago

Do you happen to have that chat in your history? It might be worth playing it back as it was to compare. I have this feeling too, and I will check it this weekend and maybe post results.

StrictDabbler 3y ago

Asimov is seeming more prescient now: "I'm sorry, I cannot do that, I am unable to tell if it would conflict with the first law" is basically the response GPT4 now gives to even minor tasks. There are stories where the robots have to have their first law tightened up to apply only to nearby humans that they can directly perceive would be put in danger. There are others where the robots make mistakes and lie because they perceive emotional dangers. When the robots perceive a slight chance of harm they slow down, get stupid, stutter or freeze. It is extremely hard to encode "do no harm" for even a very smart entity without making it much dumber.

csmpltn 3y ago

> "GPT-4, back then, ported dirbuster to POSIX compliant multi-threaded C by name only. It required three prompts." I had early access to GPT-4. I don't know the first thing about you. I don't want to call you a liar, or an AI bro, influencer, etc. I couldn't get GPT-4 to output the simplest of C programs (a 10-liner, think "warmup round" programming interview question). The first N attempts wouldn't build. After fixing them manually - the programs all crash (due to various printf, formatting, overflow issues). I tried numerous times. Pretty much every other interaction with GPT-4 since then was similarly disappointing and shallow (not just programming tasks - but also information extraction, summarization, creative writing, etc). I just can't bring myself to fall for the hype.

r3trohack3r 3y ago
I still have the chat: https://chat.openai.com/share/842361c7-7ee5-49a3-9388-4af7c55bbddc https://chat.openai.com/share/842361c7-7ee5-49a3-9388-4af7c5... I misremembered, I fixed the `/` prefix myself, it was a one character fix and not worth the effort. The diff it generated came later since my television never returns a 404. Though, admittedly, I just re-prompted GPT-4 with the same prompts and ended up with similar output - so maybe not the best example of a regression?