5 ms·

I am fairly certain that if someone did that where I work then security would be escorting them off the property within the hour. This is NOT Okay.

phinnaeus 2y ago
Are you hiring?
bitmasher9 2y ago
Where I work we are actively encouraged to use more AI tools while coding, to the point where my direct supervisor asked why my team’s usage statistics were lower than company average.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  It's not necessarily the use of AI tools (though the license parts are an issue), is that someone submitted code for review without knowing how it works.
  - masteruvpuppetz 2y ago
    I think we should / have already reached to a place where AI written code is acceptable.
    - bigstrat2003 2y ago
      Whether it's acceptable or not to submit AI code, it is clearly unacceptable to submit code that you don't even understand. If that's all an employee is capable of, why on earth would the employer pay them software engineer salary versus hiring someone to do the exact same for minimum wage?
      - userbinator 2y ago
        Or even replace them with the AI directly.
    - dpig_ 2y ago
      What a god awful thing to hear.
    - bsder 2y ago
      The problem is that "AI" is likely whitewashing the copyright from proprietary code. I asked one of the "AI" assistants to do a very specific algorithmic problem for me and it did. And included unit tests which just so happened to hit all the exact edge cases that you would need to test for with the algorithm. The "AI assistant" very clearly regurgitated the code of somebody. I, however, couldn't find a particular example of that code no matter how hard I searched. It is extremely likely that the regurgitated code was not open source. Who is liable if I incorporate that code into my product?
      - kybernetikos 2y ago
        This seems like you don't believe that AI can produce correct new work, but it absolutely can. I've no idea whether in this case it directly copied someone else's work, but I don't think that it writing good unit tests is evidence that it did - that's it doing what it was built to do. And you searching and failing to find a source is weak evidence that it did not.
        bsder 2y ago
        There is no way on this planet that an LLM "created" the exact unit tests needed to catch all the edge cases--it would even take a human quite a bit of thought to catch them all. If you change the programming language, the unit tests disappear and the "generated" code loses the nice abstractions. It's clearly regurgitating the Python code and "generating" the code for other languages.
      - guappa 2y ago
        According to microsoft: "the user". There's companies that scan code to see if it matches known open source code or not. However they probably just scan github so they won't even have a lot of the big projects.
  - xiasongh 2y ago
    Didn't people already do that before, copy and pasting code off stack overflow? I don't like it either but this issue has always existed, but perhaps it is more common now
    - hackable_sand 2y ago
      Maybe it's because I'm self-taught, but I have always accounted for every line I push. It's insulting that companies are paying people to cosplay as programmers.
      - guappa 2y ago
        I've seen self taught and graduates alike do that.
      - ascorbic 2y ago
        It's probably more common among self-taught programmers (and I say that as one myself). Most go through the early stage of copying chunks of code and seeing if they work. Maybe not blindly copying it, but still copying code from examples or whatever. I know I did (except it was 25 years ago from Webmonkey or the php.net comments section rather than StackOverflow). I'd imagine formally-educated programmers can skip some (though not all) of that by having to learn more of the theory at first.
        hackable_sand 2y ago
        If people are being paid to copy and run random code, more power to them. I wouldn't have dreamt of getting a programming job until I was literate.
    - rixed 2y ago
      Or importing a new library that's not been audited. Or compile it with a compiler that's not been audited? Or run it on silicon that's not been audited? We can draw the line in many places. I would take generated code that a rookie obtained from an llm and copied without understanding all of it, but that he has thoughtfully tested, over something he authored himself and submitted for review without enough checks.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    I use AI these days and I know how things work, there really is a huge difference. It helps me make AI write me code faster and the way I want it, something I could do, except more slowly.
bigstrat2003 2y ago
To be fair I don't think someone should get fired for that (unless it's a repeat offense). Kids are going to do stupid things, and it's up to the more experienced to coach them and help them to understand it's not acceptable. You're right that it's not ok at all, but the first resort should be a reprimand and being told they are expected to understand code they submit.
- DowsingSpoon 2y ago
  I understand the point you’re trying to get across. For many kinds of mistakes, I agree it makes good sense to warn and correct the junior. Maybe that’s the case here. I’m willing to concede there’s room for debate. Can you imagine the fallout from this, though? Each and every line of code this junior has ever touched needs to be scrutinized to determine its provenance. The company now must assume the employee has been uploading confidential material to OpenAI too. This is an uncomfortable legal risk. How could you trust the dev again after the dust is settled? Also, it raises further concerns for me that this junior seems to be genuinely, honestly unaware that using ChatGPT to write code wouldn’t at least be frowned upon. That’s a frankly dangerous level of professional incompetence. (At least they didn’t try to hide it.) Well now I’m wondering what the correct way would be to handle a junior doing this with ChatGPT, and what the correct way would be to handle similar kinds of mistakes such as copy-pasting GPL code into the proprietary code base, copy-pasting code from Stack Overflow, sharing snippets of company code online, and so on.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > Also, it raises further concerns for me that this junior seems to be genuinely, honestly unaware that using ChatGPT to write code wouldn’t at least be frowned upon. Austen Allred is selling this as the future of programming. According to him, the days of writing code into an IDE are over. https://www.gauntletai.com/ https://www.gauntletai.com/
    - manmal 2y ago
      Responding to the link you posted: Apparently, the future of programming is 100 hour weeks? Naive me was thinking we could work less and think more with these new tools at our disposal.
userbinator 2y ago
In such an environment, it would be more common for access to ChatGPT (or even most of the Internet) to be blocked.
dyauspitr 2y ago
Why? I encourage all my devs to use AI but they need to be able to explain what it does.

phinnaeus 2y ago

Are you hiring?

bitmasher9 2y ago

Where I work we are actively encouraged to use more AI tools while coding, to the point where my direct supervisor asked why my team’s usage statistics were lower than company average.

dehrmann 2y ago
It's not necessarily the use of AI tools (though the license parts are an issue), is that someone submitted code for review without knowing how it works.
- masteruvpuppetz 2y ago
  I think we should / have already reached to a place where AI written code is acceptable.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    Whether it's acceptable or not to submit AI code, it is clearly unacceptable to submit code that you don't even understand. If that's all an employee is capable of, why on earth would the employer pay them software engineer salary versus hiring someone to do the exact same for minimum wage?
    - userbinator 2y ago
      Or even replace them with the AI directly.
  - dpig_ 2y ago
    What a god awful thing to hear.
  - bsder 2y ago
    The problem is that "AI" is likely whitewashing the copyright from proprietary code. I asked one of the "AI" assistants to do a very specific algorithmic problem for me and it did. And included unit tests which just so happened to hit all the exact edge cases that you would need to test for with the algorithm. The "AI assistant" very clearly regurgitated the code of somebody. I, however, couldn't find a particular example of that code no matter how hard I searched. It is extremely likely that the regurgitated code was not open source. Who is liable if I incorporate that code into my product?
    - kybernetikos 2y ago
      This seems like you don't believe that AI can produce correct new work, but it absolutely can. I've no idea whether in this case it directly copied someone else's work, but I don't think that it writing good unit tests is evidence that it did - that's it doing what it was built to do. And you searching and failing to find a source is weak evidence that it did not.
      - bsder 2y ago
        There is no way on this planet that an LLM "created" the exact unit tests needed to catch all the edge cases--it would even take a human quite a bit of thought to catch them all. If you change the programming language, the unit tests disappear and the "generated" code loses the nice abstractions. It's clearly regurgitating the Python code and "generating" the code for other languages.
    - guappa 2y ago
      According to microsoft: "the user". There's companies that scan code to see if it matches known open source code or not. However they probably just scan github so they won't even have a lot of the big projects.
- xiasongh 2y ago
  Didn't people already do that before, copy and pasting code off stack overflow? I don't like it either but this issue has always existed, but perhaps it is more common now
  - hackable_sand 2y ago
    Maybe it's because I'm self-taught, but I have always accounted for every line I push. It's insulting that companies are paying people to cosplay as programmers.
    - guappa 2y ago
      I've seen self taught and graduates alike do that.
    - ascorbic 2y ago
      It's probably more common among self-taught programmers (and I say that as one myself). Most go through the early stage of copying chunks of code and seeing if they work. Maybe not blindly copying it, but still copying code from examples or whatever. I know I did (except it was 25 years ago from Webmonkey or the php.net comments section rather than StackOverflow). I'd imagine formally-educated programmers can skip some (though not all) of that by having to learn more of the theory at first.
      - hackable_sand 2y ago
        If people are being paid to copy and run random code, more power to them. I wouldn't have dreamt of getting a programming job until I was literate.
  - rixed 2y ago
    Or importing a new library that's not been audited. Or compile it with a compiler that's not been audited? Or run it on silicon that's not been audited? We can draw the line in many places. I would take generated code that a rookie obtained from an llm and copied without understanding all of it, but that he has thoughtfully tested, over something he authored himself and submitted for review without enough checks.
- johnisgood 2y ago
  I use AI these days and I know how things work, there really is a huge difference. It helps me make AI write me code faster and the way I want it, something I could do, except more slowly.

bigstrat2003 2y ago

To be fair I don't think someone should get fired for that (unless it's a repeat offense). Kids are going to do stupid things, and it's up to the more experienced to coach them and help them to understand it's not acceptable. You're right that it's not ok at all, but the first resort should be a reprimand and being told they are expected to understand code they submit.

DowsingSpoon 2y ago
I understand the point you’re trying to get across. For many kinds of mistakes, I agree it makes good sense to warn and correct the junior. Maybe that’s the case here. I’m willing to concede there’s room for debate. Can you imagine the fallout from this, though? Each and every line of code this junior has ever touched needs to be scrutinized to determine its provenance. The company now must assume the employee has been uploading confidential material to OpenAI too. This is an uncomfortable legal risk. How could you trust the dev again after the dust is settled? Also, it raises further concerns for me that this junior seems to be genuinely, honestly unaware that using ChatGPT to write code wouldn’t at least be frowned upon. That’s a frankly dangerous level of professional incompetence. (At least they didn’t try to hide it.) Well now I’m wondering what the correct way would be to handle a junior doing this with ChatGPT, and what the correct way would be to handle similar kinds of mistakes such as copy-pasting GPL code into the proprietary code base, copy-pasting code from Stack Overflow, sharing snippets of company code online, and so on.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Also, it raises further concerns for me that this junior seems to be genuinely, honestly unaware that using ChatGPT to write code wouldn’t at least be frowned upon. Austen Allred is selling this as the future of programming. According to him, the days of writing code into an IDE are over. https://www.gauntletai.com/ https://www.gauntletai.com/
  - manmal 2y ago
    Responding to the link you posted: Apparently, the future of programming is 100 hour weeks? Naive me was thinking we could work less and think more with these new tools at our disposal.

userbinator 2y ago

In such an environment, it would be more common for access to ChatGPT (or even most of the Internet) to be blocked.

dyauspitr 2y ago

Why? I encourage all my devs to use AI but they need to be able to explain what it does.