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Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

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Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

#201
post #73

Am I the only one who isn't using ChatGPT on a regular basis? Though I've made a few attempts to use it, generally I already know the answers to most trivial questions. And by going into more complex questions and scenarios, it becomes apparent that ChatGPT lacks a deep understanding of the suggestions it provides. It turns out to be a pretty frustrating experience. Also I've noticed that by the time I've crafted int…

It’s very important to qualify this with which model you are using. 3.5 and 4 are very different in the quality of answers they give, the version numbering is deceptive. As a side note, although I can’t confirm this it seems like the general quality of answers for both 3.5 and 4 decreased over time. I suspect they are doing further RLHF which has shown to make the model stupider for lack of a better word.

3.5 and 4 are basically completely different products. 3.5 is an great free tool that you can use to tidy up your emails before sending them, and that can summarize and explain simple concepts to you so you don't have to wade through Google search results or scroll through long Wikipedia articles.

GPT-4 can actually do stuff: it hallucinates an order of magnitude less often, generates working code, and can explain complex subjects with nuance. It's still a bit of an idiot: it's output is intern level at best, but having a lightning fast intern at my disposal 27/4 has already revolutionized my workflow.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

#202
post #73

Am I the only one who isn't using ChatGPT on a regular basis? Though I've made a few attempts to use it, generally I already know the answers to most trivial questions. And by going into more complex questions and scenarios, it becomes apparent that ChatGPT lacks a deep understanding of the suggestions it provides. It turns out to be a pretty frustrating experience. Also I've noticed that by the time I've crafted int…

This is almost the same thing I say to people.

To ask GPT about something and be able to determine whether its answer is false or not, you already need to be competent and knowledgeable in that topic. If you're already competent and knowledgeable in a topic, you don't need to ask GPT about it because you already know it.

ChatGPT is not an expert, it's not even written to try to be one, it's fancy phone keyboard prediction with a random element added.

It's great for creative stuff like "write a cut poem about a puppy" but so far literally every technical question I've asked it has been answered incorrectly.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the answer is wrong for topics you do know, why trust the answers for things you don’t? What’s going to be the term for Gell-Mann amnesia[1] but applied to LLMs instead of the media? [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190808123852/http://larvatus.c...

I think GP means people are being too perfectionist with GPT-4. Between things you're an expert on, and things you have no first clue about, there's also a vast space of things you understand to some degree - enough to let you apply intuition, common sense. In this space, you'll be able to spot rather quickly if GPT-4 is making things up, while still benefiting greatly from when it's being right.

Indeed, plus what are you going to do otherwise? Google it. And how will you vet the pages Google returns? Intuition and common sense, and perhaps an appeal to authority.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GP means people are being too perfectionist with GPT-4. Between things you're an expert on, and things you have no first clue about, there's also a vast space of things you understand to some degree - enough to let you apply intuition, common sense. In this space, you'll be able to spot rather quickly if GPT-4 is making things up, while still benefiting greatly from when it's being right.

Indeed, plus what are you going to do otherwise? Google it. And how will you vet the pages Google returns? Intuition and common sense, and perhaps an appeal to authority.

Exactly this.

And LLMs are a new thing too, it takes some getting used to. I admit I almost got burned a couple times when, for a few moments, I bought the bullshit GPT tried to sell me. Much like with Googling experience of old (sadly made near-useless over the last decade, with Google changing the fundamental ideas behind what search queries are) - as you keep using LLMs, you develop an intuition about prompting them and interpreting results. You get a feel for what is probably bullshit, what needs to be double-checked, and what can be safely taken at face value.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

#206
post #120
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played with it for writing text and it was fine for some boilerplate definitional stuff but I could have copy/pasted that pretty trivially too. Maybe could have saved me a few minutes with some starting point listicle stuff too--but would have taken a bunch of rework and additions to be publishable. Anything that's not straightforward? Even if not flat-out wrong, it lacks any real nuance. I also played with it f…

ChatGPT4 has replaced ~99% of my Google/StackOverflow searches...

Here with you 3. I use the warp terminal. They integrated chatgpt into it. I almost never leave my terminal now if I need to search something quickly.

If I forget some api or technique in some language, I ask it. Depending on its results, I may or may not start browsing for more details or to verify.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

#207
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you provide an example prompt illustrating the general types of questions that you are asking, with which it seems to struggle?

It's been a few weeks ago, but I recall asking ChatGPT about models in Django, which on the surface it often gets perfect. However, when I asked that the model in question needs to be unmanaged and backed by a SQL view (which I pasted), which had previously been applied from a migration script, it became pretty obvious that ChatGPT is just putting together sentences that are highly likely to be true, but not really u…

try asking phind.com, if it brings up outdated info just give it a link to catch up on the latest stuff, it helped me grok next js server actions and convert some code to use server actions over api calls.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

#208
post #14

Phind is a GPT powered search engine optimized for developers / technical documentation. It searches the web and tries to aggregate results from multiple web sites. Although there are instances where it references outdated versions of libraries, on balance, it significantly reduced my time spent on technical research. https://www.phind.com/

link to the docs and tell it, it's wrong about version, or ask for the features of something like nextjs 3.4 and it'll refresh it's context and give much better results. I don't know what their secret sauce is but it blows bing out of the water.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

#209
post #14

Phind is a GPT powered search engine optimized for developers / technical documentation. It searches the web and tries to aggregate results from multiple web sites. Although there are instances where it references outdated versions of libraries, on balance, it significantly reduced my time spent on technical research. https://www.phind.com/

Yeah Phind is the only AI service I use on a daily basis. Plus, free access to GPT-4 in answers is a bonus. They really nailed the experience

I love phind, but also like codeium and genie vscode plugins, really the tools I use the most. Sometimes I go back to GPT4 though.

Re: Ask HN: What's your favorite GPT powered tool?

#210
post #51

I'm really interested in a tool that can ingest documentation (I have it in markdown and asciidoc) and help me write new documentation. Any suggestions?

I'm working on something like this, but it's not ready yet. should be later this week.
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