GPT-4 does a lot of my work at this point.
I instruct it what to do, and it writes the code.
Is anyone else brave enough to admit it?
Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
71–80 of 319 posts
Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it increases my productivity about 5-10% when working with the technologies I'm the most familiar with and use regularly (Elixir, Phoenix, JavaScript, general web dev.) But when I'm doing something unfamiliar and new, it's more like 90%. It's incredible. Recently at work, for example, I've been setting up a bunch of stuff with some new technologies and libraries that I'd never really used before. Without ChatG…
The thing is the hallucinations, I also wasted few hours trying to work on solutions with GPT where it just kept making up parameters and random functions.
It referenced a made up a function I needed (that should probably exist lol) in BrightScript, the letdown after realizing as much was painful.
Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
#73The current AI may improve coder performance by only 5%, but it can improve non-coders' learning speed by 1000%. Learning to code has become significantly easier because of ChatGPT, and many university students are already using it for learning. Not only can they let ChatGPT write boilerplate code, but they can also let ChatGPT write comments for code snippets they don't understand and explain unfamiliar syntax. I wo…
I don't know about this, from my point of view to learn how to program you need to actually... program.
Trying stuff over and over again in different variations using maybe different languages, dealing with all the errors the frustration and overcoming them.
I think that using chat gpt or similar llms to learn how to code is similar to using Midjorney to learn how to draw.
Don't get me wrong you might be able to produce results fast but taking shortcuts is not going to speed up understanding.
Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed 100%. It's helpful at filling out some functions maybe if you name them correctly, and boiler plate code. Eventually, they will get better, because these things get orders better with orders more scale. Society has to do something about all the jobs at that point, but we'll hopefully get a sense of how close/far is that, with ChatGPT 5, and the next versions coming up.
The biggest benefit, I’ve found, is it makes me comment my code. If I can make the AI understand what I want, then it turns out that three months later I’ll also be able to understand the code.
That's the worst part about generative AI IMO - it makes writing new code faster - it barely helps with editing existing code. So when someone eventually updates the code and forgets to update the comments I wouldn't be surprised if the misleading comments made AI hallucinate.
Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
#75I use LLM-based autocomplete in my IDE, and it’s not taking away my job unless/until it improves by multiple orders of magnitude. It’s good at filling in boilerplate, but even for that I have to carefully check its output because it can make little errors even when I feel like what I want should be obvious. The article is absolutely correct in saying you have to be critical of its output. I would say it improves my p…
The only widely available LLM-based autocomplete is GitHub Copilot, which is based on GPT 3.
Notably, it's not GPT 3.5, it's 3.0, which is pretty stupid as far as the state of the art goes.
The upcoming Copilot X will be based on GPT 4, which has "sparks of AGI".
In my experience there is no comparison. GPT 3 is barely good enough for some trivial tab-complete tasks. GPT 4 can do quite complex tasks like generating documentation, useful tests, finding obscure bugs, etc...
Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
#76I use LLM-based autocomplete in my IDE, and it’s not taking away my job unless/until it improves by multiple orders of magnitude. It’s good at filling in boilerplate, but even for that I have to carefully check its output because it can make little errors even when I feel like what I want should be obvious. The article is absolutely correct in saying you have to be critical of its output. I would say it improves my p…
Given AI (today) has no direct agency and can’t create anything unless directly prompted, and engineering is largely domain discovery and resolving of unforeseen edges in a domain, I don’t think we are going to see a time where generative AI alone is able to be more than an assistant. It’ll likely improve, but given it only can react to what it is given/told/fed and inherently can’t innovate or create or discover, despite the illusion that it might be from the position of the users ignorance of details the AI can produce, it’ll be an increasingly powerful adjunct to increasingly capable engineers. The problems we solve will be more interesting, we will produce better software faster, but I’ve never seen the world as lacking in problems to solve but rather capacity to solve them well or quickly enough given the iterative time it takes to develop software. I think this current trend of generative AI will help improve that situation, but will likely make software engineers even more in demand as the possible uses of software become more ubiquitous as the per unit cost of development goes down.
Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
#77I work for a Fortune 100 company. Recently an email was sent to all 100,000 employees saying that nobody was allowed to use DALL-E 2, ChatGPT, Codex, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, Microsoft’s Copilot, and GitHub Copilot, etc. due to concerns about those tools using other people’s IP (meaning our company might end up illegally using their IP) or the potential that the tools might get a hold of our IP through our use of the tools and share it with others. I’m not terribly worried about generative AI taking my job when none of the thousands of programmers at my company are allowed to use it.
Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
#78I use LLM-based autocomplete in my IDE, and it’s not taking away my job unless/until it improves by multiple orders of magnitude. It’s good at filling in boilerplate, but even for that I have to carefully check its output because it can make little errors even when I feel like what I want should be obvious. The article is absolutely correct in saying you have to be critical of its output. I would say it improves my p…
The only widely available LLM-based autocomplete is GitHub Copilot, which is based on GPT 3. Notably, it's not GPT 3.5, it's 3.0, which is pretty stupid as far as the state of the art goes. The upcoming Copilot X will be based on GPT 4, which has "sparks of AGI". In my experience there is no comparison. GPT 3 is barely good enough for some trivial tab-complete tasks. GPT 4 can do quite complex tasks like generating d…
LLMs no matter how clever have no agency or creativity or ability to innovate, anticipate beyond what they’re prompted, etc. It’s crucial to realize that LLM chat interfaces disguise the fact they’re still completing a prompt. This isn’t AGI as AGI requires agency. GPT4/5 or whatever successor might be a key building block, and I suspect we’ve already discovered the missing elements in classical AI and the challenge will be integration, constraint, feedback, etc, but nothing will make LLMs alone AGI. That shouldn’t be surprising. Our brains are composed of many models, some heuristic, some optimizers, some solvers, some constrainers, and some generative. The answer won’t be a single magic thing operating in a black box. It’ll be an ensemble. We already see this effort beginning with plugins and things like langchain. This is the path forward.
Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
#79"You will have to worry about people who are using AI replacing you"
Oh yes. I should be very very afraid of the flying copypasta monster. As if my productivity is reduced to the mere rate at which I can write code! What's even project planning? Why even have meetings if it's all down to "is it done yet"? Who works at these coding sweatshops that are so afraid of AI? If they get fired and find a better place to work, that's a win.
Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI
#80How to survive in an AI world? Shift your mindset from “I write code” to “I deliver value”. Now instead of AI replacing you, it’s helping you get more done (in theory). Everyone wins. Staking your career on being a pair of hired hands that executes somebody else’s exacting specifications was always a long-term losing proposition. And we are very very far away from AI being able to ask the right questions to help busi…
> AI being able to ask the right questions to help business stakeholders and customers clearly express what they need
This is where the biggest impact will be: better requirements. I see no effect on writing code because humans already know how to write code just fine, but so many of the people running the business are absolutely clueless as to what it needs.