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Post-GPT Computing

grady.io

61–70 of 504 posts

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#61

> OpenAI made the extraordinary and IMO under-discussed decision to use an open API specification format, where every API provider hosts a text file on their website saying how to use their API. This means even this plugin ecosystem isn’t a walled garden that only the first mover controls. I don’t fully understand why they went this way, but I’m grateful they did. Why is this extraodinary? What would be the advantage…

One could imagine an alternative where the API manifest was provided privately to OpenAI in the developer console or where the plugin developer had to implement an OpenAI-specific API structure. Doing it this way is more, dare I say, open than it might have been.

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#62
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job stability is measured in years. Looking forward, assuming it improves, it’ll do more than just copy/paste code. It’ll be a senior dev capable of explaining the pros and cons of a solution, able to do code reviews and so on.

It's time to build a business I guess? Others have said exactly what I'm thinking, welcome to the age of the micro-startup, 1-3 engineers, designers, product mangers building some very cool, albeit niche products.

[deleted]

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#63

I don’t get the overall doom and gloom towards LLMs on the software field. If you are a software engineer, this will output your productivity ten fold on the upcoming years. Now you don’t need to hire junior devs and can just build the product of your dreams with very limited capital. In my opinion this technology will be as democratising as the YouTube’s early days. Instead of worrying, learn to work with it. It wil…

> If you are a software engineer, this will output your productivity ten fold on the upcoming years.

Is this really true? I may be missing something (I probably am), but I didn't find much use for AI tools in my itsec/programming work. It's a nice tool to have, but I don't write that much boilerplate. I've tried to use it as a better Google, but it kept replying with made up nonsense (things I have problem with are usually niche technologies OpenAI is not good at - I expect it will get better in the future). So I find it dubious it will "10x my productivity" in the "upcoming years". Decades, maybe.

But maybe the future really is now, and I'm just being an old-timer who can't adapt.

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#64

We need to push the notion that "closed-source LLMs are super dangerous, an existential risk to humanity". Basically we need to equate "safety" in LLMs to mean "being open-source". OpenAI keeps talking about "safety" as the most important goal. If we define it to mean "open-source" then they will be pushed into a corner.

> Basically we need to equate "safety" in LLMs to mean "being open-source".

Another way to put it is to make it more accessible to everyone, right?

The opposite of that is happening to nuclear power. They're actually trying to stop any more countries to have the technology at their disposal. So no, make it "open source" doesn't make it safe by any stretch of imagination.

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#65
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this in the least snarky, most sympathetic way possible: it's time to level up. Countless roles have had to do this, it's now our turn.

This is easy to say, but I would argue that it's impossible to know what to level up in; the field is just moving too quickly now. At this stage, the best advice I could formulate would be to learn LangChain and prompt engineering, but these too are fast moving targets, and who knows what's going to be relevant in 2024?

I agree, it is disorienting.

I think the best thing one can do is learn how LLMs work, acquaint themselves with real implementations of it (ChatGPT, copilot), and then find ways to integrate these techniques into their companies.

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#66
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now you don’t need to hire junior devs and can just build the product of your dreams with very limited capital. You are overestimating the vast amount of "software engineers" in the world. The overwhelming majority of us are just programmers, we are just gluing together CRUD spaghetti in the random language we grew up with. We don't care too much about work or a career. And most of us don't want to do more, we want…

> We don't care too much about work or a career. And most of us don't want to do more, we want to get a decent salary for our boring work. Yikes. Productive work is not just a way to earn a living but also a way to achieve personal fulfillment and happiness. It's a means of creating value and contributing to society. A person who works just for the salary and does not find any meaning in his work is not living up to…

Yikes. Your full potential isn't your work. We are all creative beings with deep emotional lives and connections to everything around us. And there are a ton of jobs in programming that pay well enough that you can live relatively well in a capitalist society. Some people find fulfillment in their families, neighbours, art, and dreams.

How many jobs in modern society are complete bullshit? A good deal of them, I would say. Why should people measure their happiness and self worth from these?

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#67
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now you don’t need to hire junior devs and can just build the product of your dreams with very limited capital. You are overestimating the vast amount of "software engineers" in the world. The overwhelming majority of us are just programmers, we are just gluing together CRUD spaghetti in the random language we grew up with. We don't care too much about work or a career. And most of us don't want to do more, we want…

> We don't care too much about work or a career. And most of us don't want to do more, we want to get a decent salary for our boring work. Yikes. Productive work is not just a way to earn a living but also a way to achieve personal fulfillment and happiness. It's a means of creating value and contributing to society. A person who works just for the salary and does not find any meaning in his work is not living up to…

> also a way to achieve personal fulfillment and happiness

For all but a select few this is an unrealistic fairy tail. Most of us just want to make money to better enjoy our lives. We were given or acquired certain skills to make money, out of juvenile interests or opportunities we used. That doesn't mean we enjoy using those skills. It would be very hard to find any other job without taking a massive pay cut, investing huge amounts of money, time and effort only to have a high chance you won't like your new job as well.

I see no job or career I am interested in: I hate everything the moment it becomes work. And I am no unique snow flake. I am part of the majority with that.

https://www.wellable.co/blog/employee-engagement-statistics-....

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why it would write in assembly. That is not portable and it makes verification difficult and also assembly has less grammatic structure which LLMs rely upon.

If there was never a need for humans to understand code, are higher level languages really the most efficient?

Probably not but I doubt ASM is either. It's too low level, and it doesn't make sense for a LLM to have to do things like instruction selection which would can be done far better by existing tools (LLVM etc.).

Maybe it could just be an alternative syntax for an existing language which is more optimized for input/output to an LLM.

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#69
post #61

> OpenAI made the extraordinary and IMO under-discussed decision to use an open API specification format, where every API provider hosts a text file on their website saying how to use their API. This means even this plugin ecosystem isn’t a walled garden that only the first mover controls. I don’t fully understand why they went this way, but I’m grateful they did. Why is this extraodinary? What would be the advantage…

One could imagine an alternative where the API manifest was provided privately to OpenAI in the developer console or where the plugin developer had to implement an OpenAI-specific API structure. Doing it this way is more, dare I say, open than it might have been.

There'd still be nothing stopping Bard from adopting an extremely similar API structure, and people would just upload the same manifests to both.

Re: Post-GPT Computing

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what that business will be worth when any random guy can create an identical one using a LLM? You remove the scarcity and the value plummets.

Any random guy can copy just about any startup already. It’s the domain expertise and insight into a potential market that builds companies not a few engineers throwing together a react app

Any random guy with a shitload of cash to spend on development. These "few engineers" can cost $1kk annually and if you think some random guy can just throw away such cash then well...

"Domain expertise and insight into a potential market" won't get you a working product that you can sell.

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