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GPT makes learning fun again

vipshek.com

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Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#131

Post by seb1204 »

vipshek wrote: post #63
kccqzy wrote: post #13

You can downvote me but I think OP hasn't learned how to learn yet. If OP reads Wikipedia by understanding every sentence and clicking on every link, that's deliberately sabotaging his own learning. Attitudes like "I don't really feel like spelunking through a ton more articles" simply shows OP isn't interested in learning per se, just quick answers. OP learns in a way that's very child-like. When you are a five-year…

OP here. I think learning exists on a broad spectrum. On one end, you're just indulging curiosity ("I wonder how...?"). On the other, you're trying to build deep understanding and expertise. I completely agree that for the latter goal, the approaches in the blog post are insufficient, even undesirable. And I do worry that the way I engage with content on the web is weakening my ability to go deep on a subject I'm int…

OT but I like the fact that you used please and thank you.

Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#132

Post by tarasglek »

Things I learned using gpt in last 6 mo:

* Various new english idioms. I read a lot, but still find new ones

* More optimal translations between languages i'm ~native in.

* ton of new JS, Python libs

* Got deeper in SQL (recursive queries, etc)

* Can use CSS way better than before

* Mermaid

I wrote https://chatcraft.org/ as a friendlier UI for learning programming related things.

Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#133

Post by seb1204 »

kerkeslager wrote: post #55
p-e-w wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is actually the killer feature of interactive AIs. People go on and on and on about "accuracy", completely ignoring that accuracy is irrelevant to 99.9% of things that humans do in their everyday lives. Simulating (positive) human interaction is far more impactful than getting facts correct.

What does it mean to have a positive interaction with someone who consistently tells you misinformation with a high degree of confidence?

Like Trump?

Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#134

Post by alex-moon »

So many comments on this shovelling sh*t on OP...? I agree with the author entirely. In practically every field, the reason it's difficult to learn anything, starting with zero, is because you don't know what questions to ask. You need to find an in. ChatGPT is really good at this - the answers it gives provide an idea of what you don't know you don't know. Obviously, you then need to go verify the answers, but the difference is: now you know what the language you need to use to do so looks like.

PS you would also need to do this if you started with Wikipedia as well.

Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#135

Post by Vanit »

tarasglek wrote: post #132

Things I learned using gpt in last 6 mo: * Various new english idioms. I read a lot, but still find new ones * More optimal translations between languages i'm ~native in. * ton of new JS, Python libs * Got deeper in SQL (recursive queries, etc) * Can use CSS way better than before * Mermaid I wrote https://chatcraft.org/ as a friendlier UI for learning programming related things.

FYI the autofocus on the API key field was a huge pain due to the Lastpass app (Android); it kept automatically opening the Lastpass app trying to fill it.

Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#136

Post by falcor84 »

ChatGTP wrote: post #92
rolisz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not DevOps, why bother learning whatever framework is used today, but which will be replaced by something else next year? I just want to get my stuff deployed and that's it.

Yeah that’s true, why bother actually knowing anything about the systems they run your software /s

Here's a thought experiment - seeing how software problems are often people problems, how knowledgeable should we expect a software engineer to be about biochemistry (the systems that "run" people)?

Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#137

Post by TheLML »

I've found ChatGPT quite useful for both coding and learning a language. Even though I have two friends who are native speakers of the language I'm learning, I don't want to bother them with my questions all the time. Especially since ChatGPT will give great explanations about grammar and why something is said the way it is. Also makes for a great practice partner to use your vocabulary and to correct your mistakes. It has definitely helped a lot already

Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#138

Post by scotty79 »

It's fun but not necessarily accurate.

Scary part is I don't know enough about the subject to tell apart truth from falshood because they are stated in exactly the same confident manner. Also most things are true with falsehoods sprinkled in between

Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#139

Post by barrkel »

throwaway675309 wrote: post #77
hammyhavoc wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I couldn't even get it to figure out an NGINX config, despite feeding it the documentation and URL rewrites it would need, and the prior Apache .htaccess file. Spent days on it. Consulted with people who know more than me about prompt engineering. Nope. Reasoning is not its strong point, IMO. It's a next-word prediction model, why would it be? It's doing what an LLM does. Frequently, nonsensically.

I've actually had great success with the automation of boiler plate DevOps nonsense using GPT-4, including: GitHub actions, Caddy scripts, Docker files, etc. Every second that I didn't have to: - go look up a similar problem on Google - open three or four stack overflow tabs - read through the stack overflow links - copy out the answer - change all the variables to match variable names that I want All of this represe…

I've found that LLMs give good results for really basic stuff, and are increasingly fantastical as you head towards the tail of the distribution.

If you just need the beginner's gist or are completely unfamiliar with something, they're not bad. Getting specific answers to corner cases is often a waste of time.

Re: GPT makes learning fun again

#140

Post by seba_dos1 »

LASR wrote: post #98
throwaway675309 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually had great success with the automation of boiler plate DevOps nonsense using GPT-4, including: GitHub actions, Caddy scripts, Docker files, etc. Every second that I didn't have to: - go look up a similar problem on Google - open three or four stack overflow tabs - read through the stack overflow links - copy out the answer - change all the variables to match variable names that I want All of this represe…

> I'm honestly baffled that people lack the ability to use LLMs in a productive and optimal manner. Huge +1. I’ve got it to do a large part of my work for me by chaining some simple API calls. The fundamental conceptual gap I see - people often ask it to do some “thinking”. Then are annoyed by the inaccurate output. A simple example is doing word count and it getting the wrong answer very confidently. Of course it su…

If "chaining some simple API calls" is "a large part of your work", I can see it being incredibly useful. I already used it in this way a few times and it saved me some time indeed. However, as a software developer I feel like it's actually a tiny minority of my work; most of it is "doing some thinking" and slowly unfolding the inner parts of systems in order to understand how they work and how to fix them or make them do what I want, for which GPT is at best useful as a rubber duck to speak to.
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