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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?

#391

Post by jhonof »

sharperguy wrote: post #249
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…

I've found that it's much worse for languages like rust than it is for things like typescript and python. The thing AI seems to be really great at is writing boilerplate code like argument parsing for CLI tools.

I actually have found it significantly worse at python than typescript, I think it's the indentation for scope vs. explicit brackets that screws it up (at least in my experience).

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

#392

Post by dmarchand90 »

barbarr wrote: post #40

For coding, I've been using it like Stack Overflow. It really decreases my barrier to doing work because I can ask lazy follow-up questions. For example, I might start out by asking it a question about a problem with Pandas like "How do I select rows of a dataframe where a column of lists of strings contains a string?". After that, GPT realizes I'm talking about Pandas, and I'm allowed to ask lazy prompts like "how d…

I find it is like having a brilliant intern that is not super consistent in taking their antipsychotic medication

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

#393

Post by xtracto »

I'm experimenting with something really cool at work:

There's an open source software project called "Metabase" that we use for reporting. I want to add some functionality, but its code is on Clojure, which is a language that I don't know and don't REALLY care for learning (it seems to be a sort of Lisp dialect, parenthesis heavy). So, I am using GPT as my code writer. I tell it how I want to modify a function or add functionality in a very precise way and it writes the code. Then I compile and run the resulting code to see how the changed worked.

BTW, when starting this project, it occurred to me that a transparent "babelfish" sort of translator that translates code form X programming language to your language of choice automatically when you open a file in VS Code would be amazing. I dream of the day when I can just do `code .` in the Metabase code directory and I can program in my language of choice while GPT transparently translates it to proper Clojure code.

I feel that with an advance enough GPT we could make it work.

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

#395

Post by chrbr »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #281
thih9 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and even a bit of therapy I’d be very careful with relying on gpt for anything health related; I’m not saying there can’t be benefits, just that the risks increase exponentially.

Risky vs what? Googling? Not doing anything? Waiting for a therapist? It’s extremely sensitive to human emotional dynamics. It is also extremely biased toward non violent communication, which is very hard for humans.

Agree, and for things like cognitive behavioral therapy, where the "rules" are well-known and well-represented in its training corpus, it's amazing.

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

#396

Post by jwalton »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #310
jwally wrote: post #288

I just asked it to make an itinerary for a 45 minute long 6 year old boy's soccer practice. It was almost perfect. It needs to be tweaked (3 minutes for cool down?) but it did 95% of the heavy lifting. I also asked it for vacation ideas with nice cabins and trailer hookups with outdoor activities for kids and nice cabins within 200 miles of where I live - it was almost perfect in its response. I have trouble starting…

Can you explain how ChatGPT's soccer itinerary is any different from the top google search [1] for the subject? Is ChatGPT's response any more useful or meaningfully different from the practice routines at the link? [1] https://www.soccerhelp.com/soccer-practice-plans.shtml

What makes you think the top google result wasn’t written by chatgpt? I came across an article on volleyball the other day that was the top hit for what I was searching for - halfway through the article there was a paragraph about a famous setter from Nekoma’s volleyball team and how they were going to play in the upcoming spring nationals. The “author” seemed completely unaware that Nekoma is a fictional team from the popular manga Haikyuu.

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

#397

Post by ornornor »

hermannj314 wrote: post #349

I have a few conversations going. My most productive is a therapy session with ChatGPT as therapist. I told it my values, my short term goals, and some areas in my life where I'd like to have more focus and areas where I would like to spend less time. Some days we are retrospective and some days we are planning. My therapist gets me back on track, never judges, and has lots of motivational ideas for me. All aligned w…

I’d be terrified to do this:

- the insight into your mind that a private for profit company gets is immense and potentially very damaging when weaponized (either through a “whoops we got hacked” moment or intentionally for the next level of adtech)

- chatgpt and other LLMs are known to hallucinate. What if it’s advice is wrong or makes you worse in the long term because it’s just regurgitating whatever at you?

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

#398

Post by apollo_mojave »

iammjm wrote: post #383
apollo_mojave wrote: post #348

I am a full time language student, and I use GPT to have "conversations" in the language. I can give it a subject (e.g., going through airport customs) and practice my conversation skills. What's also fun is I can feed it a list of vocab that I want it to use, and it'll find ways to put the words in the conversation. I also ask it to go back, look at my responses, and correct for grammar etc. It's shocking how adept…

Ours might be the last generation that will bother to learn anything, as universal everything seem to be approaching. But I think there will be a premium on all things "human".

There will definitely still be "hobbyists" who will learn languages for the fun of it. And in certain academic fields I guess they'll still expect people to know a language. But yeah, for the ordinary person, what's the point?

As far as education goes, maybe! That's a bolder claim IMO...

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

#399

Post by f6v »

mlboss wrote: post #350
f6v wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience was always that most of my time isn’t deducted to writing code. Maybe 10%, the rest us thinking about how the code I write will fit into the existing architecture or accommodate future features.

In very near future your IDE will send the whole codebase as context to LLMs. Then instead of thinking up all possibilities you can just ask. LLM will suggest multiple alternatives and you can select the best when and ask it to implement it.

The moment that happens we can all forget about working and just do arts, space exploration, and acid orgies. But that “future” is somewhere between full self driving and thermonuclear reactor.
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