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It badly hallucinated in my test. I asked it "Rust crate to access Postgres with Arrow support" and it made up an arrow-postgres crate. It even gave sample Rust

It badly hallucinated in my test. I asked it "Rust crate to access Postgres with Arrow support" and it made up an arrow-postgres crate. It even gave sample Rust code using this fictional crate! Below is its response (code example omitted): I can recommend a Rust crate for accessing PostgreSQL with Arrow support. The primary crate you'll want to use is arrow-postgres, which combines the PostgreSQL connectivity of the popular postgres crate with Apache Arrow data format support. This crate allows you to: Query PostgreSQL databases using SQL Return results as Arrow record batches Use strongly-typed Arrow schemas Convert between PostgreSQL and Arrow data types efficiently

keeran 2y ago
This was pretty much my first experience with LLM code generation when these things first came out. It's still a present issue whenever I go light on prompt details and I _always_ get caught out by it and it _always_ infuriates me. I'm sure there are endless discussions on front running overconfident false positives and being better at prompting and seeding a project context, but 1-2 years into this world is like 20 in regular space, and it shouldn't be happening any more.
- op00to 2y ago
  Often times I come up with a prompt, then stick the prompt in an LLM to enhance / identify what I’ve left out, then finally actually execute the prompt.
- exhaze 2y ago
  Cite things from ID based specs. You’re facing a skill issue. The reason most people don’t see it as such is because an LLM doesn’t just “fail to run” here. If this was code you wrote in a compiled language, would you post and say the language infuriates you because it won’t compile your syntax errors? As this kind of dev style becomes prevalent and output expectation adjust, work performance review won’t care that you’re mad. So my advice is: 1. Treat it like regular software dev where you define tasks with ID prefixes for everything, acceptance criteria, exceptions. Ask LLM to reference them in code right before impl code 2. “Debug” by asking the LLM to self reflect on its decision making process that caused the issue - this can give you useful heuristics o use later to further reduce the issues you mentioned. “It” happening is a result of your lack of time investment into systematically addressing this. _You_ should have learned this by now. Complain less, learn more.
shortrounddev2 2y ago
> I asked it "Rust crate to access Postgres with Arrow support" Is that how you actually use llms? Like a Google search box?
- herdcall 2y ago
  Well, compare it to the really good answer from Grok (https://x.com/i/grok/share/MMGiwgwSlEhGP6BJzKdtYQaXD https://x.com/i/grok/share/MMGiwgwSlEhGP6BJzKdtYQaXD) for the same prompt. Also, framing as a question still pointed to the non-existent postgres-arrow with Claude.
- elicksaur 2y ago
  “Prompting” is kind of a myth honestly. Think about it, how much marginal influence does it really have if you say OP’s version vs a fully formed sentence? The keywords are what gets it in the area.
  - globular-toast 2y ago
    Is this really the case, or is it the case with Claude etc because they've already been prompted to act as an "helpful assistant"? If you take a raw LLM and just type Google search style it might just continue it as a story or something.
  - op00to 2y ago
    I find that providing more context and details initially leads to far more success for my uses. Once there’s a bit of context, I can start barking terms and commands tersely.
    - elicksaur 2y ago
      That’s fair. I think the difference here is that the entire context needed is provided. If you’re having to explain an existing problem with edge cases, then sure, the context window needs the edge cases defined as well.
      - 2y ago
noisy_boy 2y ago
Maybe you can retry with lower temperature?
yakz 2y ago
Are you sure it searched the web? You have to go and turn on the web search feature, and then the interface is a bit different while it's searching. The results will also have links to what it found.
matt3210 2y ago
That crate knowledge is probably from a proprietary private GitHub repo given to it by Microsoft
zarathustreal 2y ago
You “asked it” a statement?

keeran 2y ago

This was pretty much my first experience with LLM code generation when these things first came out. It's still a present issue whenever I go light on prompt details and I _always_ get caught out by it and it _always_ infuriates me. I'm sure there are endless discussions on front running overconfident false positives and being better at prompting and seeding a project context, but 1-2 years into this world is like 20 in regular space, and it shouldn't be happening any more.

op00to 2y ago
Often times I come up with a prompt, then stick the prompt in an LLM to enhance / identify what I’ve left out, then finally actually execute the prompt.
exhaze 2y ago
Cite things from ID based specs. You’re facing a skill issue. The reason most people don’t see it as such is because an LLM doesn’t just “fail to run” here. If this was code you wrote in a compiled language, would you post and say the language infuriates you because it won’t compile your syntax errors? As this kind of dev style becomes prevalent and output expectation adjust, work performance review won’t care that you’re mad. So my advice is: 1. Treat it like regular software dev where you define tasks with ID prefixes for everything, acceptance criteria, exceptions. Ask LLM to reference them in code right before impl code 2. “Debug” by asking the LLM to self reflect on its decision making process that caused the issue - this can give you useful heuristics o use later to further reduce the issues you mentioned. “It” happening is a result of your lack of time investment into systematically addressing this. _You_ should have learned this by now. Complain less, learn more.

shortrounddev2 2y ago

> I asked it "Rust crate to access Postgres with Arrow support" Is that how you actually use llms? Like a Google search box?

herdcall 2y ago
Well, compare it to the really good answer from Grok (https://x.com/i/grok/share/MMGiwgwSlEhGP6BJzKdtYQaXD https://x.com/i/grok/share/MMGiwgwSlEhGP6BJzKdtYQaXD) for the same prompt. Also, framing as a question still pointed to the non-existent postgres-arrow with Claude.
elicksaur 2y ago
“Prompting” is kind of a myth honestly. Think about it, how much marginal influence does it really have if you say OP’s version vs a fully formed sentence? The keywords are what gets it in the area.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  Is this really the case, or is it the case with Claude etc because they've already been prompted to act as an "helpful assistant"? If you take a raw LLM and just type Google search style it might just continue it as a story or something.
- op00to 2y ago
  I find that providing more context and details initially leads to far more success for my uses. Once there’s a bit of context, I can start barking terms and commands tersely.
  - elicksaur 2y ago
    That’s fair. I think the difference here is that the entire context needed is provided. If you’re having to explain an existing problem with edge cases, then sure, the context window needs the edge cases defined as well.
    - 2y ago

noisy_boy 2y ago

Maybe you can retry with lower temperature?

yakz 2y ago

Are you sure it searched the web? You have to go and turn on the web search feature, and then the interface is a bit different while it's searching. The results will also have links to what it found.

matt3210 2y ago

That crate knowledge is probably from a proprietary private GitHub repo given to it by Microsoft

zarathustreal 2y ago

You “asked it” a statement?