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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?

#501

Post by macNchz »

fooker wrote: post #471
fanagra32 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you will have no idea whether the solution it presents to you is idiomatic or recommended or contains some common critical flaw or is hopelessly outdated. How can you find out? Back to alt-tabbing to the browser. Sure it may take a bit more time to get going, but then you'll get it right the first time and learn something along the way. Your copilot example is just another iteration of copy-and-paste some random…

You have no idea if the alternative code you would have written would have been idiomatic or had some critical flaw. We have 50+ years of software engineering wisdom to deal with these issues. Testing, Fuzzing, version control, code reviews, the whole gauntlet.

I mean... I certainly know which languages I can write idiomatic code in and which I cannot.

I can't know that my code will be free of critical flaws, but I do understand the common sources of flaws and techniques to avoid them, and I'm quite confident I can build small features like this that simply aren't vulnerable to SQL injection, on the first try and without requiring fuzzers or code review: https://infosec.exchange/@malwaretech/110029899620668108

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

#502

Post by ornornor »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #498
ornornor wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm hugely curious why people are so worried that some AI has access to some thoughts of yours? Do you think you are somehow special? Just create a burner account and ask it what you want, everything it gets told, it's seen thousands of times over, does chatGPT or some data scientist somewhere really care that there is someone somewhere that is struggling with body issues, struggling in a relationship or struggling t…

> If i worked at openAI and had full access to everyones chats, I would get bored within five minutes and not even want to read anymore.

Yes, obviously.

But that's not what I'm worried about personally. I'm worried about the weaponization of this data in the future, either from OpenAI's greed to create the next advertising money-printing machine or from the data leaking through a breach. And because the interface with ChatGPT is so "natural" and "human like", it's easy to trust it and talk to it like a friend divulging very personal information about yourself.

Imagine OpenAI (or whatever other AI) used the confidences you made to it or the specifics of your "therapy" sessions with it to get you to act in a certain way or buy certain things. Would you be comfortable with that? Well, that's irrelevant because they have the data already and can use it. Kinda like Cambdridge Analytica but on steroids because tailoring it to anyone's particular biases and way of thinking becomes trivial with ChatGPT and friends.

Seeing how cavalier OpenAI has been with last week's breach and how fast they've flipped from being apparently benevolent to what they are now. And it's only been a few months of ChatGPT being available to the public.

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

#503

Post by ornornor »

Llamamoe wrote: post #424
ornornor wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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? Therapy isn't magic always-correct advice either. It's about shifting your focus, attitudes, thought patterns through social influence, not giving you the right advice on each and every step. Even if it's just whatever, being heard out in a nonjudgmental…

I get your point. I think it would bother me that's it's a robot/machine vs a real human, but that's just me. The same way that venting to my pet is somewhat cathartic but not very much compared to doing the same at my SO/parents/friends.

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

#504

Post by ChildOfChaos »

ornornor wrote: post #502
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hugely curious why people are so worried that some AI has access to some thoughts of yours? Do you think you are somehow special? Just create a burner account and ask it what you want, everything it gets told, it's seen thousands of times over, does chatGPT or some data scientist somewhere really care that there is someone somewhere that is struggling with body issues, struggling in a relationship or struggling t…

> If i worked at openAI and had full access to everyones chats, I would get bored within five minutes and not even want to read anymore. Yes, obviously. But that's not what I'm worried about personally. I'm worried about the weaponization of this data in the future, either from OpenAI's greed to create the next advertising money-printing machine or from the data leaking through a breach. And because the interface wit…

Yes, I would be fine with this.

Not that much different from the current fingerprint techniques, it's just that on steroids but I don't understand the issue.

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

#505

Post by coffeefirst »

imiric wrote: post #242

I might be in the minority here, but I'm not using any AI tools so far, probably to my detriment. I don't trust it with my data, and won't rely on such tools until I can self-host them, and they can be entirely offline. There is some progress in this space, but they're not great yet, and I don't have the resources to run them. I'm hoping that the requirements will go down, or I might just host it on a cloud provider.…

Same.

I don't need it to write documents or emails for me. It mostly generates filler, which... nobody needs.

Most of the energy I put into code is about what it should do and how to make it clear to the next person, not typing. I was able to use it once to look up a complex SQL fix that I was having a hard time Googling the syntax on, but that's it.

Perhaps it would be useful if I was working in a language I'm not familiar with, BUT in that scenario I really need it to cite its sources, because that's exactly the case where I wouldn't know when it's making a mistake.

There's something useful here, but it's probably more like a library help desk meets a search engine on steroids. It would be pretty cool to run an AI on my laptop that knows my own code and notes where I can ask "I did something like this three years ago, go find it."

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

#506

Post by ornornor »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #504
ornornor wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If i worked at openAI and had full access to everyones chats, I would get bored within five minutes and not even want to read anymore. Yes, obviously. But that's not what I'm worried about personally. I'm worried about the weaponization of this data in the future, either from OpenAI's greed to create the next advertising money-printing machine or from the data leaking through a breach. And because the interface wit…

Yes, I would be fine with this. Not that much different from the current fingerprint techniques, it's just that on steroids but I don't understand the issue.

I guess it boils down to the current "nothing to hide" crowd vs the "privacy matters" crowd.

We don't know the potential for this nascent technology either. I'm personally very concerned about the potential for manipulating people on a very personal basis since the cost of doing so is cents with LLMs vs orders of magnitude more when using a troll farm (the "state of the art" until ChatGPT3+ came around)

Some of us just don't appreciate being manipulated and influenced to further someone else's agenda that is detrimental to ourselves I suppose.

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

#507

Post by lazyant »

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…

reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man

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

#508

Post by danecjensen »

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…

Can you share the outline of your prompt. Obviously not anything personal but I'd like to see an example of how you give it your values and goals.

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

#509

Post by ornornor »

gabrieledarrigo wrote: post #463
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…

Man please, go to a real therapist with experience.

Not playing devil's advocate but that's not always an option (cost, availability)

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

#510

Post by ornornor »

utopcell wrote: post #470
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 wonder if the three laws of robotics are already weaved into the LLM. Seems like a necessary step for this kind of usage.

I found this video insightful on the matter from Computerphile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PKx3kS7f4A

Where they argue that basically having an AI follow these laws is impossible because it would require rigorous definition of terms that are universally ambiguous and solving ethics.

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