4 ms·

I regularly use it for menial tasks and it has almost completely replaced searching documentations of major libraries for me. As a senior developer, it's a prod

I regularly use it for menial tasks and it has almost completely replaced searching documentations of major libraries for me. As a senior developer, it's a productivity gold mine if you learn how to use it correctly. But I wouldn't recommend it to any junior dev, because you need lots of experience to see when it starts hallucinating.

hartator 3y ago
> I regularly use it for menial tasks Like random formal letter to AI? Maybe it is a societal problem more than a technical one if we all hate writing and reading these. I don’t get the search documentation part. It has obvious blind spots on many things and hallucinate on others.
- sigmoid10 3y ago
  >Like random formal letter to AI? No, I'm talking about things like writing SQL queries (even complex ones), CMake files, Docker configs or plotting stuff in Python. Of course, if you're not already an expert in these things, you'll have a hard time distinguishing useful replies from hallucinations - that's why I said it's mostly for senior devs. Without expert knowledge, you will likely not be able to benefit from it in its current state. But if you have that and know how to write efficient queries, it can easily up your productivity by a factor of 10 (i.e. going back and forth for 6 minutes with GPT4 to make it get your requirements can save you an hour of work looking through documentations).
  - josephg 3y ago
    10x seems like a stretch, but I agree. I have a chatgpt window open most of my workday now too. "Hey chatgpt - help me write this mathematical equation in latex. Hey chatgpt - give me an example nodejs program that reads a line-delimited JSON file without loading the whole thing in memory first". "Hey chatgpt - What are the popular & good python libraries for drawing an SVG scatter plot of some data? Give me some example code for each library."
    - sigmoid10 3y ago
      It depends on what you're doing of course. With your example queries I'd also expect a lower boost, but the benefits should still be there. Where it really shines is if you already know exactly what you want and how you want it and you merely need someone to write it in code in a common language.
vachina 3y ago
How do you reconcile with the fact that it imagine things?
- Philpax 3y ago
  GPT-4's solutions are usually correct the first time around, or can be corrected by telling it what it did wrong. The ask-clarify-correct loop is still faster and less effort than doing it yourself.
  - verdverm 3y ago
    If people continue to learn outside of LLMs and can tell when it is wrong so they can correct it. The slope can be slippery. For those of us who grew up before the rise of LLMs, this isn't really something we have to worry about. But the next generation will be not know what it was like without LLMs, kind of like the pre/post-internet/phone generational splits
- matwood 3y ago
  The same way a colleague or myself is often not 100% correct. Neither is Google.
- Kiro 3y ago
  Not a problem in practice if you're a developer. It's probably worse if you're just copypasting without understanding anything.
- jddj 3y ago
  Approach it with the same critical eye that you use to consume any other information.
- RobCat27 3y ago
  I've found that for questions that aren't super complex on things that are extremely likely to be in its training dataset (such as public documentation of popular Python libraries) the error rate is very close to 0%. Even compared to GPT from a few months ago I've found the accuracy of responses has increased dramatically. I still believe anyone using these tools on a day-to-day basis should have a sense of "trust but verify."
rvz 3y ago
> As a senior developer it's a productivity gold mine if you learn how to use it correctly. Sounds like what a junior developer would say, given they tend to depend on it even when it hallucinates the wrong answers badly. Also explains the rampant title inflation that is going around in the tech industry these days.
- nunobrito 3y ago
  Would have to disagree. I've writing code for +25 years and counting, a good portion is critical infraestructure code. I've reached the title of chief-expert and quite frankly gets difficult nowdays to find people who can answer my questions or at least help explore possible routes to solve them. ChatGPT is like a buddy that is always available and sitting next to you for a good technical chat. Sometimes it comes up with really good techniques that are different from my usual approaches, other times is plain wrong and I'm correcting it. I am more productive with the ChatGPT in my life. Whenever stuck on some weird error, instead of googling I paste the log and discuss with the bot what can be going wrong there. We can talk about pointer analysis, performance bottleneck comparisons. Could I do it all on my own? Sure. However it is boring and quite certainly would require 10x more time to perform all calculations on my own. In the end of a day it is just another tool. Brings advantage when used properly.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

hartator 3y ago

> I regularly use it for menial tasks Like random formal letter to AI? Maybe it is a societal problem more than a technical one if we all hate writing and reading these. I don’t get the search documentation part. It has obvious blind spots on many things and hallucinate on others.

sigmoid10 3y ago
>Like random formal letter to AI? No, I'm talking about things like writing SQL queries (even complex ones), CMake files, Docker configs or plotting stuff in Python. Of course, if you're not already an expert in these things, you'll have a hard time distinguishing useful replies from hallucinations - that's why I said it's mostly for senior devs. Without expert knowledge, you will likely not be able to benefit from it in its current state. But if you have that and know how to write efficient queries, it can easily up your productivity by a factor of 10 (i.e. going back and forth for 6 minutes with GPT4 to make it get your requirements can save you an hour of work looking through documentations).
- josephg 3y ago
  10x seems like a stretch, but I agree. I have a chatgpt window open most of my workday now too. "Hey chatgpt - help me write this mathematical equation in latex. Hey chatgpt - give me an example nodejs program that reads a line-delimited JSON file without loading the whole thing in memory first". "Hey chatgpt - What are the popular & good python libraries for drawing an SVG scatter plot of some data? Give me some example code for each library."
  - sigmoid10 3y ago
    It depends on what you're doing of course. With your example queries I'd also expect a lower boost, but the benefits should still be there. Where it really shines is if you already know exactly what you want and how you want it and you merely need someone to write it in code in a common language.

vachina 3y ago

How do you reconcile with the fact that it imagine things?

Philpax 3y ago
GPT-4's solutions are usually correct the first time around, or can be corrected by telling it what it did wrong. The ask-clarify-correct loop is still faster and less effort than doing it yourself.
- verdverm 3y ago
  If people continue to learn outside of LLMs and can tell when it is wrong so they can correct it. The slope can be slippery. For those of us who grew up before the rise of LLMs, this isn't really something we have to worry about. But the next generation will be not know what it was like without LLMs, kind of like the pre/post-internet/phone generational splits
matwood 3y ago
The same way a colleague or myself is often not 100% correct. Neither is Google.
Kiro 3y ago
Not a problem in practice if you're a developer. It's probably worse if you're just copypasting without understanding anything.
jddj 3y ago
Approach it with the same critical eye that you use to consume any other information.
RobCat27 3y ago
I've found that for questions that aren't super complex on things that are extremely likely to be in its training dataset (such as public documentation of popular Python libraries) the error rate is very close to 0%. Even compared to GPT from a few months ago I've found the accuracy of responses has increased dramatically. I still believe anyone using these tools on a day-to-day basis should have a sense of "trust but verify."

rvz 3y ago

> As a senior developer it's a productivity gold mine if you learn how to use it correctly. Sounds like what a junior developer would say, given they tend to depend on it even when it hallucinates the wrong answers badly. Also explains the rampant title inflation that is going around in the tech industry these days.

nunobrito 3y ago
Would have to disagree. I've writing code for +25 years and counting, a good portion is critical infraestructure code. I've reached the title of chief-expert and quite frankly gets difficult nowdays to find people who can answer my questions or at least help explore possible routes to solve them. ChatGPT is like a buddy that is always available and sitting next to you for a good technical chat. Sometimes it comes up with really good techniques that are different from my usual approaches, other times is plain wrong and I'm correcting it. I am more productive with the ChatGPT in my life. Whenever stuck on some weird error, instead of googling I paste the log and discuss with the bot what can be going wrong there. We can talk about pointer analysis, performance bottleneck comparisons. Could I do it all on my own? Sure. However it is boring and quite certainly would require 10x more time to perform all calculations on my own. In the end of a day it is just another tool. Brings advantage when used properly.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]