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> Should I use AI to solve Advent of Code puzzles? No. If you send a friend to the gym on your behalf, would you expect to get stronger? Advent of Code puzzles

by zwnow 11mo ago

> Should I use AI to solve Advent of Code puzzles? No. If you send a friend to the gym on your behalf, would you expect to get stronger? Advent of Code puzzles are designed to be interesting for humans to solve - no consideration is made for whether AI can or cannot solve a puzzle. If you want practice prompting an AI, there are almost certainly better exercises elsewhere designed with that in mind. And yet I expect the whole leaderboard to be full of AI submissions... Edit: No leaderboard this year, nice!

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stOneskull 11mo ago
i don't think there is a global leaderboard this year. just private ones.
retsibsi 11mo ago
Not this time: > The global leaderboard was one of the largest sources of stress for me, for the infrastructure, and for many users. People took things too seriously, going way outside the spirit of the contest; some people even resorted to things like DDoS attacks. Many people incorrectly concluded that they were somehow worse programmers because their own times didn't compare. What started as a fun feature in 2015 became an ever-growing problem, and so, after ten years of Advent of Code, I removed the global leaderboard.
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KolmogorovComp 11mo ago
> And yet I expect the whole leaderboard to be full of AI submissions... There will be no global leaderboard this year.
Cthulhu_ 11mo ago
I mean they're great programming tests, for both people and AI I'd argue - like, it'd be impressive if an AI can come up with a solution in short order, especially with minimal help / prompting / steering. But it wouldn't be a personal achievement, and if it was a competition I'd label it as cheating.
chongli 11mo ago
I am so glad there is no leaderboard this year. Making it a competition really is against the spirit of advent calendars in general. It’s also not a fair competition by default simply due to the issue of time zones and people’s life schedules not revolving around it. There are plenty of programming competitions and hackathons out there. Let this one simply be a celebration of learning and the enjoyment of problem solving.
- zwnow 11mo ago
  Yea fully agree. The leaderboards always made me feel bad.
- amitav1 11mo ago
  I agree with the first point but the second point feels irrelevant. Yeah, people's life schedules don't revolve around it, but that doesn't mean shouldn't make iy a competition. Most people who play on chess.com don't have lives that revolve around it, but that doesn't mean that chess.com should abolish Elo rankings.
  - acedTrex 11mo ago
    The global leaderboard encouraged bad behavior against the entire project. Including criminal things like attempting to ddos the site.
  - poulpy123 11mo ago
    afai your elo score don't depend of your timezone
  - chongli 11mo ago
    Chess doesn't rank people based on how quickly they complete a puzzle after midnight EST (UTC-5). For people in large parts of Asia, midnight EST translates to late morning / early afternoon. This means someone in Asia can complete each AoC puzzle during daylight hours whereas someone in eastern North America will have to complete the puzzle in the middle of the night.
losvedir 11mo ago
Depends how you look at it. Some of my colleagues rave about Claude Code, so I was thinking about trying it out on these puzzles. In that sense it is "going to the gym", just for a different thing. Since I do AoC every year, I feel like it'll give me a good feel for Claude Code compared to my baseline. And it's not just "prompting", but figuring out a workflow with tests and brainstorming and iteration and all that. I guess if the LLM can just one-shot every puzzle that's less interesting, but I suppose it would be good to know it can do that...
- zwnow 11mo ago
  It 100% can do that. LLMs are trained on an unfathomable amount of data. Every AoC puzzle can be solved by identifying the algorithm behind it. Its Leetcode in a friendlier and more festive spirit.

by zwnow 11mo ago

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stOneskull 11mo ago

i don't think there is a global leaderboard this year. just private ones.

retsibsi 11mo ago

Not this time: > The global leaderboard was one of the largest sources of stress for me, for the infrastructure, and for many users. People took things too seriously, going way outside the spirit of the contest; some people even resorted to things like DDoS attacks. Many people incorrectly concluded that they were somehow worse programmers because their own times didn't compare. What started as a fun feature in 2015 became an ever-growing problem, and so, after ten years of Advent of Code, I removed the global leaderboard.

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KolmogorovComp 11mo ago

> And yet I expect the whole leaderboard to be full of AI submissions... There will be no global leaderboard this year.

Cthulhu_ 11mo ago

I mean they're great programming tests, for both people and AI I'd argue - like, it'd be impressive if an AI can come up with a solution in short order, especially with minimal help / prompting / steering. But it wouldn't be a personal achievement, and if it was a competition I'd label it as cheating.

chongli 11mo ago

I am so glad there is no leaderboard this year. Making it a competition really is against the spirit of advent calendars in general. It’s also not a fair competition by default simply due to the issue of time zones and people’s life schedules not revolving around it. There are plenty of programming competitions and hackathons out there. Let this one simply be a celebration of learning and the enjoyment of problem solving.

zwnow 11mo ago
Yea fully agree. The leaderboards always made me feel bad.
amitav1 11mo ago
I agree with the first point but the second point feels irrelevant. Yeah, people's life schedules don't revolve around it, but that doesn't mean shouldn't make iy a competition. Most people who play on chess.com don't have lives that revolve around it, but that doesn't mean that chess.com should abolish Elo rankings.
- acedTrex 11mo ago
  The global leaderboard encouraged bad behavior against the entire project. Including criminal things like attempting to ddos the site.
- poulpy123 11mo ago
  afai your elo score don't depend of your timezone
- chongli 11mo ago
  Chess doesn't rank people based on how quickly they complete a puzzle after midnight EST (UTC-5). For people in large parts of Asia, midnight EST translates to late morning / early afternoon. This means someone in Asia can complete each AoC puzzle during daylight hours whereas someone in eastern North America will have to complete the puzzle in the middle of the night.

losvedir 11mo ago

Depends how you look at it. Some of my colleagues rave about Claude Code, so I was thinking about trying it out on these puzzles. In that sense it is "going to the gym", just for a different thing. Since I do AoC every year, I feel like it'll give me a good feel for Claude Code compared to my baseline. And it's not just "prompting", but figuring out a workflow with tests and brainstorming and iteration and all that. I guess if the LLM can just one-shot every puzzle that's less interesting, but I suppose it would be good to know it can do that...

zwnow 11mo ago
It 100% can do that. LLMs are trained on an unfathomable amount of data. Every AoC puzzle can be solved by identifying the algorithm behind it. Its Leetcode in a friendlier and more festive spirit.