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Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

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Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

#181

Post by rjtavares »

zacte wrote: post #153
xgbi wrote: post #145

I asked him to create new plausible scenarios for an X-Ray training program I'm writing. It was not THAT plausible, but it filled the placeholders I have in my UI quite well and he actually used other words related to anatomy than thos I provided in an example. Also, I asked him to output the resulting scenarios according to a vague json schema and he complied. Copy/pasted it in my JS front and it went without a hitc…

I found it interesting you're starting anthropomorphizing it.

Not GP, but my native language doesn't have an "it" pronoun, just he/she, so my use of "it" is always inconsistent. May be the same situation.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

#182

Post by qrybam »

I’ve been actively using it and it’s become my go-to in a lot of cases - Google is more for verification when I smell something off or if it doesn’t have up to date information. Here are some examples:

• reviewing contract changes, explaining hard to parse legalese

• advice on accounting/tax when billing international clients

• visa application

• boilerplate django code

• learnt all about smtp relays, and requirements for keeping a good reputation for your IPs

• travel itinerary

• domain specific questions (which were 50/50 correct at best…)

• general troubleshooting

I’m using it as a second brain. I can quickly double check some assumptions, get a clear overview of a given topic and then direction on where I need to delve deeper.

Anyone who still thinks that this is “just a statistical model” doesn’t get it. Sure, it’s not sentient or intelligent, but it sure as hell making my life easier. I won’t be going back to the way I used to do things.

Edit: bullet formatting

Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

#183

Post by yosito »

jerkstate wrote: post #142

I'm having it generate code of course (it hallucinated the ability to write a minecraft mod for bedrock in C#). Other than that, it wrote a Discord bot for me. I have also used it to make data tables comparing cars. Silly stuff like TCO$ per kW per kg. I found the best way to make a spreadsheet was to ask it to generate A, B, C column headings and numbered row headings. Then asking it to emit the excel/gsheet formula…

I'd be interested to see your prompts for the spreadsheets.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

#184

Post by andsoitis »

yosito wrote: post #177
carlmr wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So on my coding problems I haven't had much luck. It doesn't seem to know Bazel, the Rust code I asked about was completely hallucinated, but it did solve a problem with Azure DevOps I had. I think if the training set did not contain enough of something it can't really think of a solution. What is really nice though it's as you say the refinement of questions. Sometimes it's hard to think of the right query, maybe yo…

Yeah, I gave it a simple task of encoding a secret message in a sentence by using the first letter of every word. Hello = "Hey everyone, lick less onions". I worked with the prompts for over an hour to try to get it to complete the task, and while I did have some success, it really struggled to reason about the task or provide a valid response. If it can't even reason about a child's game, I can imagine it struggles…

> I don't think it's actually reasoning about things at all, just providing a statistically plausible response to prompts.

It turns out that humanity’s problem might not be that AIs can think but rather that humans believe that AIs can think. One might even go so far as to say there’s a real danger that we hallucinate that AIs can think, to our detriment.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

#185

Post by tasuki »

AlexTrask wrote: post #172
dosco189 wrote: post #162

I am using it to learn programming. I have no technical background but know enough about technology to be able to talk about the problems abstractly. Because my knowledge of the space is not via formal education and training, I have gaps in my knowledge and do not know deeper details about how ideas connect with each other on a deeper level. GPT allows me to ask questions and provide the right kind of "connecting" br…

My advice to learn programming is to avoid shortcuts and do the hard things like read the documentation

I don't think they were asking for advice.

The way dosco189 is using GPT is perfectly fine. They aren't letting GPT do all the work for them, they're letting it explain how concepts relate to each other, something you often will not find in the documentation.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

#186

Post by yosito »

nneonneo wrote: post #113
peteforde wrote: post #111

Last night, I used GPT-4 to help me design a stereo matrix mixer circuit. First, I used it to help me make sense of the datasheet for a crosspoint matrix IC, and when "we" determined that the IC I was planning to use didn't support some of the functions that were critical to my design goals, it suggested a number of alternative ICs which might work, along with listing potential tradeoffs that might impact my design.…

I think this is interesting, because it points out the ways in which a future GPT might be subtly trained to embed advertising. "It looks like you're doing X; have you considered a commercial solution, such as Y or Z?". While you did wind up with a device that probably will suit your need, you also wound up out of a potentially fun hobby project. Not everyone will call that a win :)

It actually worries me what's going to happen to tools like GPT when it starts being influenced by commercial interests and manipulating people. What's going to happen when a sports drink manufacturer pays GPT to never ever ever mention water when people are asking about dehydration, but instead to pitch the sports drink? Are we gonna block all kinds of knowledge just because it interferes with some corporation making a profit? What happens when GPT starts promoting a political candidate or demoting another? Who controls which candidates GPT prefers? What are we doing to protect GPT from this kind of outcome?

Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

#188

Post by hughesjj »

qrybam wrote: post #182

I’ve been actively using it and it’s become my go-to in a lot of cases - Google is more for verification when I smell something off or if it doesn’t have up to date information. Here are some examples: • reviewing contract changes, explaining hard to parse legalese • advice on accounting/tax when billing international clients • visa application • boilerplate django code • learnt all about smtp relays, and requirement…

100% this. It's also game changing for learning a new language (of any type, not just programming), any of the boring parts of software engineering like most programming tasks (it's like a personal intern -- sure you have to check their work and the quality is all over the place but still, dang I love it), and even a bit of therapy.

At worst/minimum, It's the ultimate rubber duck.

(To be clear, I'm exclusively using gpt-4)

Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

#189

Post by huijzer »

My favorite uses are:

- Interactive debugging. Yesterday, for example, it helped me debug some tricky CSS issue where it gave hints and after 6 times back and forth, the solution came up. I had to explicitly set `-webkit-appearance: none` for styling sliders in WebKit browsers; this wasn't the case for Firefox.

- Checkout definitions. I have a small tool (https://github.com/rikhuijzer/ata) available on a keyboard shortcut and use it to quickly checkout definitions for words when I come across a word that I don't know.

- Writing jargon and suggesting edits. I let it write parts of my paper. ChatGPT is way better than me in adhering to the jargon of the field and also gives useful suggestions for small things that I should add and makes sentences easier to read.

- Refactoring. GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT are great at refactoring code between languages. Just give an example (one shot learning) of how some kind of long html text should be rewritten to markdown or a Rust struct and it will generally do pretty well. Saves a lot of Vim magic and/or typing.

- Having an assistant. As cliche as it may sound at this point, I actually agree that ChatGPT feels like an assistant which thinks with you and is there to fallback on.

> But I'm also interested in hearing about useful prompts that you use to increase your productivity.

Just like Greg demoed in the GPT-4 developer livestream, I just ask the question in the first paragraph and then throw in as much information as possible after that.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?

#190

Post by yosito »

qrybam wrote: post #182

I’ve been actively using it and it’s become my go-to in a lot of cases - Google is more for verification when I smell something off or if it doesn’t have up to date information. Here are some examples: • reviewing contract changes, explaining hard to parse legalese • advice on accounting/tax when billing international clients • visa application • boilerplate django code • learnt all about smtp relays, and requirement…

I'm excited about the potential of travel itineraries once extensions are available. What if I can tell it where I want to go, and it could just handle picking the best flights and accomodations for me and I didn't have to spend any time searching airline or hotel websites. I'm curious to know more detail about how you're using it for travel itineraries now.
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