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Yes. Prompt engineering is like a shittier verson of writing a VBA app inside Excel or Access. Bloat has a new name and its AI integration. You thought Chrome

Yes. Prompt engineering is like a shittier verson of writing a VBA app inside Excel or Access. Bloat has a new name and its AI integration. You thought Chrome using GB per tab was bad, wait until you need a whole datacenter to use your coding environment.

Alex3917 11mo ago
> Prompt engineering is like a shittier verson of writing a VBA app inside Excel or Access. Sure, if you could use VBA to read a patient's current complaint, vitals, and medical history, look up all the relevant research on Google Scholar, and then output a recommended course of treatment.
- noitpmeder 11mo ago
  That instantly kills the patient -- "But you asked me to remove his pain"
  - duskdozer 11mo ago
    You're absolutely right! I did--in fact--fail to consider the obvious negative consequences of killing the patient to remove his pain. I am truly horrified about this mistake. Let's try again, and this time I will make sure to avoid intentionally causing the patient's death. Oops--you're absolutely right! I did--in fact--fail to remember not to kill the patient after you expressly told me not to.
- tony_cannistra 11mo ago
  Don’t do this.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
- malfist 11mo ago
  You mean make up relevant sounding research on google scholar?
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
- bluefirebrand 11mo ago
  You absolutely can use VBA to invent this information out of nothing just like AI does half the fucking time
- wizzwizz4 11mo ago
  I can use VBA to do that. Public Sub RecommendedTreatment() ' read patient complaint, vitals, and medical history Set complaint = Range("B3").Value Set vitals = Range("B4").Value Set history = Range("B5").Value ' research appropriate treatments ActiveSheet.QueryTables.Add("URL;https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hygiene+drug", Range("Z1")).Refresh ' the patient requires mouse bites to live Range("B5").Value = "mouse bites" End Sub "But wizzwizz4," I hear you cry, "this is not a good course of treatment! Ignoring all inputs and prescribing mouse bites is a strategy that will kill more patients than it cures!" And you're right to raise this issue! However, if we start demanding any level of rigour – for the outputs to meet some threshold for usefulness –, ChatGPT stops looking quite so a priori promising as a solution. So, to the AI sceptics, I say: have you tried my VBA program? If you haven't tested it on actual patients, how do you know it doesn't work? Don't allow your prejudice to stand in the way of progress: prescribe more mouse bites!
simonw 11mo ago
The difference between prompting a coding agent and VBA is that with VBA you have to write and test and iterate on the code yourself.

Alex3917 11mo ago

> Prompt engineering is like a shittier verson of writing a VBA app inside Excel or Access. Sure, if you could use VBA to read a patient's current complaint, vitals, and medical history, look up all the relevant research on Google Scholar, and then output a recommended course of treatment.

noitpmeder 11mo ago
That instantly kills the patient -- "But you asked me to remove his pain"
- duskdozer 11mo ago
  You're absolutely right! I did--in fact--fail to consider the obvious negative consequences of killing the patient to remove his pain. I am truly horrified about this mistake. Let's try again, and this time I will make sure to avoid intentionally causing the patient's death. Oops--you're absolutely right! I did--in fact--fail to remember not to kill the patient after you expressly told me not to.
tony_cannistra 11mo ago
Don’t do this.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
malfist 11mo ago
You mean make up relevant sounding research on google scholar?
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
bluefirebrand 11mo ago
You absolutely can use VBA to invent this information out of nothing just like AI does half the fucking time
wizzwizz4 11mo ago
I can use VBA to do that. Public Sub RecommendedTreatment() ' read patient complaint, vitals, and medical history Set complaint = Range("B3").Value Set vitals = Range("B4").Value Set history = Range("B5").Value ' research appropriate treatments ActiveSheet.QueryTables.Add("URL;https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hygiene+drug", Range("Z1")).Refresh ' the patient requires mouse bites to live Range("B5").Value = "mouse bites" End Sub "But wizzwizz4," I hear you cry, "this is not a good course of treatment! Ignoring all inputs and prescribing mouse bites is a strategy that will kill more patients than it cures!" And you're right to raise this issue! However, if we start demanding any level of rigour – for the outputs to meet some threshold for usefulness –, ChatGPT stops looking quite so a priori promising as a solution. So, to the AI sceptics, I say: have you tried my VBA program? If you haven't tested it on actual patients, how do you know it doesn't work? Don't allow your prejudice to stand in the way of progress: prescribe more mouse bites!

simonw 11mo ago

The difference between prompting a coding agent and VBA is that with VBA you have to write and test and iterate on the code yourself.