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Google warns its own employees: Do not use code generated by Bard

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Re: Google warns its own employees: Do not use code generated by Bard

#61

Post by dacryn »

jstummbillig wrote: post #56
oxygen_crisis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't write the code yourself, you're not a good judge of how competent it is. If you admire any code that simply works at all when you don't know how it should be done, then your admiration isn't a measurement worth considering. Ask an LLM how to do something you already know very well how to do properly, only then can you see its flaws through its mindless bravado.

I don't have to have built a car to be able to judge the quality of a car to a decent approximation. And with code, surely, skill carry over is very real. Being able to generalize is literally our entire thing.

as someone who worked for a car manufacturer, you are wrong.

What people perceive as a quality car, is often a lack of understanding. Some think they are driving a fine car, but someone who pays attention notices that the door gaps are not uniform, that the plastic on the inside will start to smell bad in summer, that you will get a lot more fatigue because of wind noise and tire noise, that the sound of the door being slammed shut is very hollow instead of a nice THUNK, that the automatic gear box often eats its gears, especially when driving slow, ...

There are many details normal people don't even notice about their cars, and then they claim it is a quality car. It is not, I am sorry, and it is the perfect analogy for this ChatGPT/Bard being a code generator.

Re: Google warns its own employees: Do not use code generated by Bard

#63

Post by Lacerda69 »

lynx23 wrote: post #43
redbell wrote: post #35

> Cautioning its own workers not to directly use code generated by Bard undermines Google's claims its chatbot can help developers become more productive The definitive definition of irony o_O This reminds me of two pictures that were circulating on social media a while ago. The first was Zuckerberg holding a book while billions of people are wasting their time in endless scrolling in the Metas; the second was that T…

Drug dealers have figured this out long ago. Never get high on your own stuff... No surprise this is the same with tech.

Smoking crack /= using your own software.

In fact i would recommend every dev to use their own stuff, "dogfooding" helps a lot to improve the product.

Re: Google warns its own employees: Do not use code generated by Bard

#64

Post by londons_explore »

dacryn wrote: post #61
jstummbillig wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have to have built a car to be able to judge the quality of a car to a decent approximation. And with code, surely, skill carry over is very real. Being able to generalize is literally our entire thing.

as someone who worked for a car manufacturer, you are wrong. What people perceive as a quality car, is often a lack of understanding. Some think they are driving a fine car, but someone who pays attention notices that the door gaps are not uniform, that the plastic on the inside will start to smell bad in summer, that you will get a lot more fatigue because of wind noise and tire noise, that the sound of the door bei…

The very definition of a quality product is one that the user is happy with.

If the user doesn't notice the door gaps, then it isn't a quality issue. If the user doesn't drive the car enough to wear out the suboptimal gearbox, then it isn't a quality issue.

Yes, this means that the definition of quality depends on the needs of the user.

Re: Google warns its own employees: Do not use code generated by Bard

#65

Post by stevejobs69 »

samwillis wrote: post #31
buro9 wrote: post #21

This is Google, who have a monorepo, who are afraid of the legal risks to the monorepo. The copyright of the output of these tools is not yet determined, it's a risk. The advice not to use the tools in a risky way not only directly mitigates the risk but like an "employees must wash hands" sign in a restaurant restroom, it can be seen as a reasonable step that transfers some of the liability to the staff member. It's…

I doubt the fact they use a monorepo has any impact on this thinking. A versioned sourced repository is no different from a file server. If some "ai copyright infringed" code made it into the monorepo it doesn't compromise the whole thing. There are still clear distinct projects and products. But exactly, this is a hygiene thing. Staff will still be using these tools anyway.

as a google swe I find bard almost useless. it doesnt understand any of our internal tooling or context.

Re: Google warns its own employees: Do not use code generated by Bard

#67

Post by [deleted] »

ilitirit wrote: post #49
redbell wrote: post #35

> Cautioning its own workers not to directly use code generated by Bard undermines Google's claims its chatbot can help developers become more productive The definitive definition of irony o_O This reminds me of two pictures that were circulating on social media a while ago. The first was Zuckerberg holding a book while billions of people are wasting their time in endless scrolling in the Metas; the second was that T…

I asked Bard to suggest improvements to a SQL query I wrote. It suggested that I change my filter to improvement performance. The filter I had was: WHERE Column1 Column2 The suggested improvement: WHERE Column1 Column2 When I pointed out that it just gave me exactly the same code, it apologised and suggested this improvement instead: WHERE Column1 > Column2 I'm trying to understand how this helps me become more produ…

[deleted]

Re: Google warns its own employees: Do not use code generated by Bard

#68

Post by comboy »

lastangryman wrote: post #27

With all the those leetcode-style interviews and dynamic programming problems in the interview process, surely the genius "Googlers", the worthy few, that make it through this process wouldn't need to use AI to generate code.

I guess it's sarcasm, but if you are experienced and have project loaded in your mind you also don't need to use code completion. Stuff like copilot feels to me like a stronger code completion.

Re: Google warns its own employees: Do not use code generated by Bard

#69

Post by mfjordvald »

logicchains wrote: post #57
ec109685 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s an example where Bard is making up studies to support RFK’s thesis that drinking water causes transgenderism: https://twitter.com/EbenThurston/status/1670619027608092674?... It’s flat out lying, yet folks are using its output in arguments.

Here's a real study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29314190/ . It found when frogs were exposed to atrazine (a herbicide) in wastewater runoff, "female minnows were defeminized, whereas male frogs were feminized". Similarly https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0909519107 found that "Atrazine-exposed males were both demasculinized (chemically castrated) and completely feminized as adults. Ten percent of the exposed…

Egg temperature plays a definitive role in the sex of turtles, but no one would claim it in the realm of possibility for that to affect humans.

It's always good to be aware of how things affect human hormones and absolutely worth study and regulation, but it's a huge jump from frogs are affected to humans are affected. I know right wing people are world class long jumpers so this kind of "it could be!" really isn't helping towards a reasonable debate.

Re: Google warns its own employees: Do not use code generated by Bard

#70

Post by dijit »

redbell wrote: post #35

> Cautioning its own workers not to directly use code generated by Bard undermines Google's claims its chatbot can help developers become more productive The definitive definition of irony o_O This reminds me of two pictures that were circulating on social media a while ago. The first was Zuckerberg holding a book while billions of people are wasting their time in endless scrolling in the Metas; the second was that T…

I don't think that's an accurate representation at all; and I say this as a person whom has also restricted the use of AI in their company.

The last time I read the Github CoPilot agreement for example it used specific language such as: "Suggestions"; and seemed to indicate that copilot was merely inspiring developers through suggestion rather than creating code that could (or should) be copied verbatim.

I think in reality most people are copying code verbatim and not using AI as inspiration, but it seems like (legally speaking) that it is the safest approach to treat AI generated code as non-copyable..

That notion is consistent with what Google is stating here.

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