3 ms·

Its also creating a generation of non-programmers who can now program

worthless-trash 2y ago
I belive you are incorrect. Its making a generation of people who can write prompts and sometimes get a useful program out of it.
- lawlessone 2y ago
  shhh, think of all the security jobs this will create
  - varispeed 2y ago
    Security jobbies using AI to find holes created by developers using AI. Too funny.
  - grajaganDev 2y ago
    I predict that there will be a Security Engineer specialty in finding LLM written or influenced vulnerabilities.
    - worthless-trash 2y ago
      BRB, becoming thought leader in this space.
  - babyent 2y ago
    System: "You are a senior staff security engineer and researcher. Use the latest techniques and the internet for any new techniques to find any vulnerabilities in the code below. Do not give any explanations, only the fixed code" User: { AI generated 1600 line handler "getUsers" with sql injection, n+1 queries, an exposed secret, plaintext passwords and credit cards, and lots of unused variables }
aredox 2y ago
Don't think so, as you need to review the output to stave off hallucinations
dczomb 2y ago
I don't consider copy and pasting stuff I don't understand programming.
varispeed 2y ago
Until an obstacle hits them and AI goes into a "reasoning" loop unable to find a solution and they don't know how to "nudge" it to the right path. I've seen in some companies, relatively trivial tickets are bounced from developer to developer for months and management believing these are hard to do.
- cricketsandmops 2y ago
  This happens to me and I just move to another AI program if i have 0 idea, but I have been getting better at figuring things out too.
slightwinder 2y ago
How? What I see are non-programmers who can create programs, but still have hardly any ability to understand them, debug them or even create them on their own without AI-tools. This is similar, but worse, to what we used to call Stack Overflow-Programmer, or coding bootcamp-kids.
- cricketsandmops 2y ago
  I would fall into this camp. I don't understand everything I am doing, but I have learned a lot through trial and error. I have an IT background in infrastructure and dabbled in automation, but never enough to be good. AI has allowed me to create things from my ideas that interest me. Is it good, no. Do I sell it though, no. I create things for myself. I wouldn't be able to do these things without it though because I didnt have the time and the teaching I had tried didnt interest me.
  - slightwinder 2y ago
    On one side, that's fine. Nobody can understand everything, and even the best developer has to learn with trial & error sometimes. And that these tools are enabling us to cover our lack in time/knowledge is great and brings society to new levels. But on the other side does society also need highly educated experts, with deep understanding of things and the ability to find and prevent the s** which will harm us. This is not limited to IT, it's the same in every area. Education prevents disaster. But AI prevents education, maybe. We will see how this will play out for us. Maybe the AI-Overlord won't be just a joke anymore at some point, and benevolent AGIs can replace the necessary experts.
sksrbWgbfK 2y ago
"who can generate write-only text with a prompt" but won't understand why it is wrong.
tyho 2y ago
Is that actually happening? I use o1 a lot for brainstorming etc, but I don't think I could build a program of any significant size without understanding how to program myself so to guide o1 and stitch it's outputs together. It's also not at all uncommon for me to have to do stuff completely myself, it doesn't have great insights into deep problems for instance.
aunty_helen 2y ago
It’s also creating a generation on management, clients and non-technical people who send me outputs from Claude and suggest I implement what it said. Needless to say, this makes my life harder.
aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
I would say "expands the class of simple applications one can build without expertise" in the same way spreadsheet software enabled simple financial programs, website builders meant you didn't need to do HTML/JS nitty-gritty, etc. OTOH these technologies also enable financial blunders (I am personally responsible for at least one really nasty Excel bug), horrible website design, etc etc. Edit: Arvind Naranyan of AI Snake Oil uses LLMs to create "one-time-use" apps, mostly little games or educational things for his kids. As an AI skeptic I think this is cool and should be celebrated. But there is a serious downside when using it blindly for real work. I have never liked the term "can program" anyway, programming is the easy part....
insane_dreamer 2y ago
And that is a good thing because ....
shlomo_z 2y ago
Seems like everyone disagrees with you. Instead of reply to each of them individually I will reply here: I used to be a non-programmer (although extremely technically advanced). I was very good with the terminal because I always played around with ADB and other things. I even wrote Windows batch scripts (but looking at them now is embarrassing. I used a lot of repetition instead of loops). When ChatGPT became available, and my friend taught me how to use it to write Python scripts, I went all in. I didn't write a word of my own code. I just copy /pasted Chatgpt's output into notepad++. It was really annoying sometimes to get ChatGPT to change a simple thing. It hallucinated often and "fixed" stupid things I didn't ask for help with. I used all these scripts for various personal things. For example, it made me a GUI to edit the metadata of every .mp3 in a folder). After several months of exposure to code, I knew the basic syntax and tried to code myself when I could, and Stack Overflow was a big help. I still had very basic skills and didnt even know what a `class` was. Fast forward to now, I consider myself extremely good at Python, and decent in other languages. I now use classes and dataclasses all the time. I always add type hints to my code. I follow Python PEPs and try to design my code to be short, maintainable, and to the point. If a library lacks documentation, I just read the source code. I started using an IDE, and the intellisense is really a step up from using notepad++. I still use copilot, but I refuse to paste large code blocks from any llm. It makes the code so much harder to maintain. If I really do like the code chatgpt gave me when I get stuck, I write it myself, instead of copy/paste. I don't know if everyone has the same experience as me, but I would certainly say that ChatGPT helped me become a successful programmer.
PKop 2y ago
And that's a bad thing.
ladyprestor 2y ago
I would say it's non-programmers who THINK they can now program. As soon as the LLM stops being helpful, they're stuck.
vrighter 2y ago
Programming is a mindset, more than just the ability to type (or copy/paste, nowadays) something that the compiler accepts. So no, they can't program. If something goes wrong they have no idea why it's wrong. They also have no idea why it's right, when it just happens to be.

I belive you are incorrect. Its making a generation of people who can write prompts and sometimes get a useful program out of it.

lawlessone 2y ago
shhh, think of all the security jobs this will create
- varispeed 2y ago
  Security jobbies using AI to find holes created by developers using AI. Too funny.
- grajaganDev 2y ago
  I predict that there will be a Security Engineer specialty in finding LLM written or influenced vulnerabilities.
  - worthless-trash 2y ago
    BRB, becoming thought leader in this space.
- babyent 2y ago
  System: "You are a senior staff security engineer and researcher. Use the latest techniques and the internet for any new techniques to find any vulnerabilities in the code below. Do not give any explanations, only the fixed code" User: { AI generated 1600 line handler "getUsers" with sql injection, n+1 queries, an exposed secret, plaintext passwords and credit cards, and lots of unused variables }

aredox 2y ago

Don't think so, as you need to review the output to stave off hallucinations

dczomb 2y ago

I don't consider copy and pasting stuff I don't understand programming.

varispeed 2y ago

Until an obstacle hits them and AI goes into a "reasoning" loop unable to find a solution and they don't know how to "nudge" it to the right path. I've seen in some companies, relatively trivial tickets are bounced from developer to developer for months and management believing these are hard to do.

cricketsandmops 2y ago
This happens to me and I just move to another AI program if i have 0 idea, but I have been getting better at figuring things out too.

slightwinder 2y ago

How? What I see are non-programmers who can create programs, but still have hardly any ability to understand them, debug them or even create them on their own without AI-tools. This is similar, but worse, to what we used to call Stack Overflow-Programmer, or coding bootcamp-kids.

cricketsandmops 2y ago
I would fall into this camp. I don't understand everything I am doing, but I have learned a lot through trial and error. I have an IT background in infrastructure and dabbled in automation, but never enough to be good. AI has allowed me to create things from my ideas that interest me. Is it good, no. Do I sell it though, no. I create things for myself. I wouldn't be able to do these things without it though because I didnt have the time and the teaching I had tried didnt interest me.
- slightwinder 2y ago
  On one side, that's fine. Nobody can understand everything, and even the best developer has to learn with trial & error sometimes. And that these tools are enabling us to cover our lack in time/knowledge is great and brings society to new levels. But on the other side does society also need highly educated experts, with deep understanding of things and the ability to find and prevent the s** which will harm us. This is not limited to IT, it's the same in every area. Education prevents disaster. But AI prevents education, maybe. We will see how this will play out for us. Maybe the AI-Overlord won't be just a joke anymore at some point, and benevolent AGIs can replace the necessary experts.

sksrbWgbfK 2y ago

"who can generate write-only text with a prompt" but won't understand why it is wrong.

tyho 2y ago

Is that actually happening? I use o1 a lot for brainstorming etc, but I don't think I could build a program of any significant size without understanding how to program myself so to guide o1 and stitch it's outputs together. It's also not at all uncommon for me to have to do stuff completely myself, it doesn't have great insights into deep problems for instance.

aunty_helen 2y ago

It’s also creating a generation on management, clients and non-technical people who send me outputs from Claude and suggest I implement what it said. Needless to say, this makes my life harder.

aithrowawaycomm 2y ago

I would say "expands the class of simple applications one can build without expertise" in the same way spreadsheet software enabled simple financial programs, website builders meant you didn't need to do HTML/JS nitty-gritty, etc. OTOH these technologies also enable financial blunders (I am personally responsible for at least one really nasty Excel bug), horrible website design, etc etc. Edit: Arvind Naranyan of AI Snake Oil uses LLMs to create "one-time-use" apps, mostly little games or educational things for his kids. As an AI skeptic I think this is cool and should be celebrated. But there is a serious downside when using it blindly for real work. I have never liked the term "can program" anyway, programming is the easy part....

insane_dreamer 2y ago

And that is a good thing because ....

shlomo_z 2y ago

Seems like everyone disagrees with you. Instead of reply to each of them individually I will reply here: I used to be a non-programmer (although extremely technically advanced). I was very good with the terminal because I always played around with ADB and other things. I even wrote Windows batch scripts (but looking at them now is embarrassing. I used a lot of repetition instead of loops). When ChatGPT became available, and my friend taught me how to use it to write Python scripts, I went all in. I didn't write a word of my own code. I just copy /pasted Chatgpt's output into notepad++. It was really annoying sometimes to get ChatGPT to change a simple thing. It hallucinated often and "fixed" stupid things I didn't ask for help with. I used all these scripts for various personal things. For example, it made me a GUI to edit the metadata of every .mp3 in a folder). After several months of exposure to code, I knew the basic syntax and tried to code myself when I could, and Stack Overflow was a big help. I still had very basic skills and didnt even know what a `class` was. Fast forward to now, I consider myself extremely good at Python, and decent in other languages. I now use classes and dataclasses all the time. I always add type hints to my code. I follow Python PEPs and try to design my code to be short, maintainable, and to the point. If a library lacks documentation, I just read the source code. I started using an IDE, and the intellisense is really a step up from using notepad++. I still use copilot, but I refuse to paste large code blocks from any llm. It makes the code so much harder to maintain. If I really do like the code chatgpt gave me when I get stuck, I write it myself, instead of copy/paste. I don't know if everyone has the same experience as me, but I would certainly say that ChatGPT helped me become a successful programmer.

PKop 2y ago

And that's a bad thing.

ladyprestor 2y ago

I would say it's non-programmers who THINK they can now program. As soon as the LLM stops being helpful, they're stuck.

vrighter 2y ago

Programming is a mindset, more than just the ability to type (or copy/paste, nowadays) something that the compiler accepts. So no, they can't program. If something goes wrong they have no idea why it's wrong. They also have no idea why it's right, when it just happens to be.