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Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#281

Post by sireat »

jamaicahest wrote: post #266
riwsky wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m reminded of those pro StarCraft players who retire at like 30 because, while their strategy is perfect, their fingers simply can’t click or hotkey as fast as the twenty somethings.

I imagine it is the same for any elite level sport. Except perhaps chess.

Actually top level OTB chess ability degrades notably past 50 with a few notable exceptions (Korchnoi, Smyslov). Sure the decline starts a bit later than regular sports but still it is significant.

That is why when Rausis(https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=14248) rating was approaching 2700 in his 50s everyone was very suspicious.

It is partially due to the incredible levels of stamina required to stay on top of the game for 4-6 hours.

Also as Kramnik said when he was retiring, you start making strange(read wrong) decisions suddenly.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#283

Post by throwuwu »

klysm wrote: post #167
throwuwu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the complex regexes I write fall into the category of stuff I don’t understand that might work. I’m no slouch at regexes either but when you start trying to do weird data processing stuff that handles all kinds of edge cases the wheels really come off quick.

If you write it you at least partially understand it. I don’t buy it

If gpt writes it and I don’t understand some parts I just paste it into a regex testing site and examine the groups and try it out with different snippets of text. Is that so hard? Is it any different from using something you found on SO?

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#284

Post by throwuwu »

funnymony wrote: post #261
throwuwu wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point the models will produce code with a lower error rate than existing libraries.

How do you ensure quality? Review and testing. Reviewing is easier when there is less code (i.e. libraries are in use)

It’s crazy how many people miss this. GPT models can review code too! They can also write and run tests. Once the context window is big enough to fit the whole code base into it they will be better at review than you are. Eventually we’ll have fine tuned models that are experts in any subject you can think of, the only barrier is data and a lot of recent research is showing that that can be machine generated too.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#286

Post by wouldbecouldbe »

fomine3 wrote: post #168
abalashov wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. The thing hallucinates far more than the hyperventilation seems willing to acknowledge. You really need to be quite competent in the thing you're asking it to do in order to ferret out the hallucinations, which greatly diminishes the potency of GPT in the hands of someone who has no knowledge of the relevant language/runtime/problem domain/etc.

Hallucination is less a problem for programming compared to other use case, because finally program must be run.

I had my colleague had troubles getting an email from Google docs into listmonk.

She asked gpt to help get an html version since apparently she got stuck with the wysiwg editor.

However gpt gave back a full html structure, including head and body. Pasting that into listmonk breaks entire webpage. Then she freaked out and told me listmonk sucks :)

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#287

Post by jabradoodle »

Gigachad wrote: post #241
jabradoodle wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure it will still mostly make sense to have a division of labour where you have people who are focused on building software. The question is if generative AI is powerful enough to reduce the number of programmers needed to achieve a task, without creating enough opportunities to replace those programmers. Before we are all replaced there could be a moment where demand for software engineers is 10x less.

Society would simply demand more capable and complex software. Specialized industrial applications that currently look like windows 98 java apps would be expected to be as polished as iOS.

I don't think there is some natural law that dictates we will need enough new software that we will always increase demand in the face of efficiency gains.

For industrial applications in particular they need to be functional and operable, not shiny.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#288

Post by radicalace »

namaria wrote: post #222
radicalace wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is not widely appreciated that openAI will at some point finish training one of their models and there, in that room where the terminal is, total power will exist and be under the control of whoever happens to be in there. “GTP10, please recreate NSO exploits and launch a campaign to download all data of the global population. hack and commandeer other data-centers if necessary, discreetly of course. begin an oper…

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Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#289

Post by JohnFen »

xlii wrote: post #188
padolsey wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> if anyone accesses app developed by you, they can use it freely without any license.

This is simply incorrect on every level, starting with the fact that (in the US, anyway), you can't place your works in the public domain even if you wanted to.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#290

Post by JohnFen »

agentultra wrote: post #280
2devnull wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“as yet” is doing a lot of work in that first sentence. We all have a gpt number. Like some small number of workers have already been replaced by gpt4, some it will not be until gpt7, some may out code the robots till gpt9.5… Having a higher number doesn’t mean you are a better developer, just that you sit in more meetings and have to use “soft skills” like kissing ass and playing stupid, covering your ass, and other…

Are you suggesting LLMs will inevitably gain sentience, consciousness, and the ability to reason deductively at some point in the future? Recall that the problem with programming isn’t generating more code. Completing a fragment of code by analyzing millions of similar examples is a matter of the practical application of statistics and linear algebra. And a crap ton of hardware that depends on a brittle supply chain,…

> In my view it’s not an algorithm that’s coming for my job. It’s capitalists who want more profits without having to pay me to do the work when they could exploit a machine learning model instead.

Bingo. This is the real threat, and not just in our industry, but in every industry.

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