3 ms·

The chatbot forgets once the context tokens are used up. How do you engineer a solution, then, that ensures that the chatbot never forgets?

9dev 1y ago
That's not engineering in any sense of the word, and calling it that is an insult to any real engineer. What you're describing is poking a thing with a stick to see if it moves.
- akerl_ 1y ago
  Isn’t this the same thing folks said in the past when software developers got reclassified into “engineers” alongside civil/electrical/etc engineers who had standards bodies, professional credentials, and licenses? It’s really convenient that now folks here are in the in-group so that we can turn around and guard the entry gate.
  - 9dev 1y ago
    We have to set the lower bar somewhere. Am I a spreadsheet engineer now because I calculate expenses in Excel? No, because that would be ridiculous. More to the point: If the system you’re interacting with isn’t deterministic, you don’t understand how it really works internally, and you’re prodding it to see what happens if you do this instead of that—then that just isn’t engineering! or at least not in the sense that the word has been used, not without it becoming a term void of any specific meaning.
    - akerl_ 1y ago
      > If the system you’re interacting with isn’t deterministic, you don’t understand how it really works internally, and you’re prodding it to see what happens if you do this instead of that—then that just isn’t engineering! Biological engineering would like a word. But to press your overall point: why? What bad happens if we discard an attempt at a “lower” bound and let somebody be a spreadsheet engineer or a breakfast engineer or a roulette engineer?
      - 9dev 1y ago
        Nothing really bad happens for sure. The term engineer just looses its meaning, becoming a generic way to refer to someone doing… something. I like language that's precise, expressive, and succinct. If someone says they're a baker, I know what they do. If we start to apply that label to anyone working in a bakery, even if they just operate the coffee machine, that holds no longer true, and more explanations are needed, more opportunities for misunderstandings arise, things become less efficient and more error-prone. How can that be desirable?
        akerl_ 1y ago
        It doesn’t bother me as much as having an in-group trying to close the door on people they’ve decided are below the bar and don’t get to use a word. I think engineers will survive just fine.

9dev 1y ago

That's not engineering in any sense of the word, and calling it that is an insult to any real engineer. What you're describing is poking a thing with a stick to see if it moves.

akerl_ 1y ago
Isn’t this the same thing folks said in the past when software developers got reclassified into “engineers” alongside civil/electrical/etc engineers who had standards bodies, professional credentials, and licenses? It’s really convenient that now folks here are in the in-group so that we can turn around and guard the entry gate.
- 9dev 1y ago
  We have to set the lower bar somewhere. Am I a spreadsheet engineer now because I calculate expenses in Excel? No, because that would be ridiculous. More to the point: If the system you’re interacting with isn’t deterministic, you don’t understand how it really works internally, and you’re prodding it to see what happens if you do this instead of that—then that just isn’t engineering! or at least not in the sense that the word has been used, not without it becoming a term void of any specific meaning.
  - akerl_ 1y ago
    > If the system you’re interacting with isn’t deterministic, you don’t understand how it really works internally, and you’re prodding it to see what happens if you do this instead of that—then that just isn’t engineering! Biological engineering would like a word. But to press your overall point: why? What bad happens if we discard an attempt at a “lower” bound and let somebody be a spreadsheet engineer or a breakfast engineer or a roulette engineer?
    - 9dev 1y ago
      Nothing really bad happens for sure. The term engineer just looses its meaning, becoming a generic way to refer to someone doing… something. I like language that's precise, expressive, and succinct. If someone says they're a baker, I know what they do. If we start to apply that label to anyone working in a bakery, even if they just operate the coffee machine, that holds no longer true, and more explanations are needed, more opportunities for misunderstandings arise, things become less efficient and more error-prone. How can that be desirable?
      - akerl_ 1y ago
        It doesn’t bother me as much as having an in-group trying to close the door on people they’ve decided are below the bar and don’t get to use a word. I think engineers will survive just fine.