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Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

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Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#181

Post by helsinkiandrew »

bruce511 wrote: post #175
twodave wrote: post #121

Is programming even the hard part about programming? In all seriousness, what we would really need from an AI to start really saving me time would be for it to interview all the customers/partners involved on the project, determine the scope of function needed, boil all that down to a set of sensible domain models that make sense to everyone, identify where/when messages need to be passed, determine which things can…

I don't need it to write code. I don't need it to interview customers. I need it yourself attend endless, pointless, weekly zoom meetings where a manager with zero understanding of the task being done, why its being done, and with no idea how to do it, nevertheless is happy to review open tickets and discuss them. This task will take 2 months. I'm busy working on it. If you want a 5 minute email every week on how its…

> I need it yourself attend endless, pointless, weekly zoom meetings where a manager with zero understanding of the task being done.

You don't need AI for that, you need to brush up your resume and find another job - The biggest regret of my career is not having left places early when the organisation/management style sucked the enjoyment/productivity out of what you do, particularly if everyone else there agrees with you.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#182

Post by re-thc »

padolsey wrote: post #176
dwaltrip wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s super interesting. I’m recovering from burnout and other health issues and I’ve found it to be occasional helpful in the way you are describing. For me, it can smooth out the process and “lower the intensity” of accomplishing any particular task, especially if it is something where I don’t know how to do it off the top of my head (what libs / functions to use, how to call them, etc). I can then pretty easily c…

> what libs / functions to use, how to call them Yeh same. It's got pretty good overview of what libraries are available. I tend to ask it for an npm module to do x and it always has a couple options, and can list pros/cons, and give/modify code to use them. > have you used gpt-4 much or can you get away with using 3.5 sometimes? Ah so I _always_ use gpt4. It's in a whole other ballpark IMHO. > If you don’t mind, do…

> try it! It gives complete react components,

Maybe I expect more or work on different standards but every time I've tried it it gives low quality code with issues that I rather write it myself. Sometimes it'd give completely wrong answers.

It's just not code I'd commit or let pass a code review.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#184

Post by radicalace »

pessimizer wrote: post #87
firebirdn99 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is one underrated point. Altman talks about democratizing this technology. But if the leading LLMs concentrate at a few companies, unless governmentally mandated, they could keep guardrails from regular folks accessing it, and also with regulation capture.

"democratizing this technology" = working closely with government > unless governmentally mandated, they could keep guardrails from regular folks accessing it That's not what's going to happen. Government will mandate that regular folks can't access it. Government will also do its best to make sure LLMs concentrate at a few companies, which it will often refer to as "partners."

the main inflection point will be when it becomes socially taboo to express an anti-ai sentiment. just like with certain medicines or whichever war is being launched currently, the media will play lapdog for the government. the true inflection point comes when the federal government recognizes whats going on and enters into the AI arms race. suddenly the media will be flooded with talk of how AGI saves lives, discovers medicines, and all the other good things it might do. but they will never mention the existential angst and dread that will hang heavily in the air or any negative aspect of total human obsolescence. when you start to see AI get political all of a sudden, inexplicably, all is lost.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#185

Post by omgmajk »

sigstoat wrote: post #103
omgmajk wrote: post #2

> Software engineers should be critical of the outputs of large language models, as they tend to hallucinate and produce inaccurate or incorrect code. This seems to be the case more than not for certain tasks, anything assembler or C I have ever asked it has turned out to be at least somewhat wrong. Mixing styles and syntax all over the place. I am not afraid that some generative AI will take my job anytime soon.

> anything assembler or C I have ever asked it has turned out to be at least somewhat wrong i've found that its quality is proportional to the amount of questions about the subject on the internet. if i ask it for help with popular javascript frameworks, it vastly improves my productivity (i'm not a frontend person). it still coughs up wrong stuff half the time, but even then it can cut through the constant churn of…

Funny you should say that because it was STM32 that I was working with when ChatGPT blew up.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#186

Post by bruce511 »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #181
bruce511 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need it to write code. I don't need it to interview customers. I need it yourself attend endless, pointless, weekly zoom meetings where a manager with zero understanding of the task being done, why its being done, and with no idea how to do it, nevertheless is happy to review open tickets and discuss them. This task will take 2 months. I'm busy working on it. If you want a 5 minute email every week on how its…

> I need it yourself attend endless, pointless, weekly zoom meetings where a manager with zero understanding of the task being done. You don't need AI for that, you need to brush up your resume and find another job - The biggest regret of my career is not having left places early when the organisation/management style sucked the enjoyment/productivity out of what you do, particularly if everyone else there agrees wit…

My point us that (as yet) AI can't replace my job, so I'm safe. (The job is safe whether I do it or someone else does.)

Now since I work remotely, I am much more likely to be replaced by a cheaper offshore worker. Certainly seems to already have happened to some of the managers I report(ed) to.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#187

Post by bruce511 »

pkdpic wrote: post #178
bruce511 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need it to write code. I don't need it to interview customers. I need it yourself attend endless, pointless, weekly zoom meetings where a manager with zero understanding of the task being done, why its being done, and with no idea how to do it, nevertheless is happy to review open tickets and discuss them. This task will take 2 months. I'm busy working on it. If you want a 5 minute email every week on how its…

In all seriousness I haven't seen the idea of LLMs replacing managerial functions in a while, it would be an interesting inversion of a quasi-post-labor utopia.

AI would likely make great managers. Given competent staff.

Alas while I rag on about incompetent managers, it's not uncommon to find staff who, charitably, need a lot of "management".

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#188

Post by xlii »

padolsey wrote: post #160
twodave wrote: post #121

Is programming even the hard part about programming? In all seriousness, what we would really need from an AI to start really saving me time would be for it to interview all the customers/partners involved on the project, determine the scope of function needed, boil all that down to a set of sensible domain models that make sense to everyone, identify where/when messages need to be passed, determine which things can…

> the code can almost write itself My 2c: I've been an eng for around 15 yrs. I semi-recently had a brain injury so haven't been able to dedicate anywhere near as much mental cognition to programming recently. That's why I've been unable to maintain full-time work. I started using chatgpt around 3 months ago. Initially skeptical, I started giving it fun and weird logical/semantic puzzles to satisfyingly "prove" my in…

...and makes your code public domain (you just admitted here that you're using it)- if anyone accesses app developed by you, they can use it freely without any license.

Worst thing - you're feeding potentially not your code into GPT. That'd be a fireable offense to me (and a very expensive lawsuit for at least couple places I know). Not an issue if you're lone wolf, though.

It's a dystopian thought, but I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft (which provides such services), when it knows you're using service to create public domain code, could just copy it one-to-one, because hey - free lunch, right?

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#189

Post by boringuser2 »

SrslyJosh wrote: post #151
boringuser2 wrote: post #71

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?

...and then six months later, maybe a year, someone will have to clean up the mess you've made.

Are you implying that I don't know how to read code and (instruct GPT-4 to) write tests? I know what GPT-4 writes, it just does it instantly, whereas I do not.

The notion that I am generating and committing large blocks of untested arbitrary code makes me feel like you don't know how development is done. You're too far from reality for me to have confidence that you're at the professional level.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#190

Post by ryoshu »

twodave wrote: post #121

Is programming even the hard part about programming? In all seriousness, what we would really need from an AI to start really saving me time would be for it to interview all the customers/partners involved on the project, determine the scope of function needed, boil all that down to a set of sensible domain models that make sense to everyone, identify where/when messages need to be passed, determine which things can…

Programming is easy. Asking the right question is hard.
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