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Advent of Code 2023's new AI/LLM Policy

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Re: Advent of Code 2023's new AI/LLM Policy

#41

Post by michaelt »

reedf1 wrote: post #6

I can't help but feel part of the meaning drops out of it when there are carve outs for tools. If an AI can do it instantly, it starts to feel like pointless busy work, isn't that why we become programmers in the first place? If your intent is to make it a pure human-keyboard-code challenge, then I would have thought this would be a great opportunity to make the underlying questions harder, or to find the edge cases…

> If an AI can do it instantly, it starts to feel like pointless busy work,

Isn't every coding competition pointless busywork? The organisers already know the solution, and even if they don't I can probably find a dozen solutions on github/reddit/wherever.

The point is you can enjoy it even though it's pointless busywork - much like you can enjoy doing a crossword, or running a marathon, or lifting a heavy weight in the gym.

Re: Advent of Code 2023's new AI/LLM Policy

#42

Post by kstrauser »

sucralose wrote: post #33
kstrauser wrote: post #30

That's reasonable. I might try a wholly separate challenge this year: seeing if I can talk an AI into solving each of the puzzles. I wonder how far I could get using only ChatGPT's output without any hand-coding.

Couldn't you tell it exactly what to write without technically hand-coding it? "Make an if statement checking if x is greater than 5, and if so, print y."

I don't know. Maybe? That's the sort of thing I'd like to find out.

Re: Advent of Code 2023's new AI/LLM Policy

#43

Post by kaba0 »

postalrat wrote: post #4

"(If you want to use AI to help you solve puzzles, I can't really stop you, but I feel like it's harder to get better at programming if you ask an AI to do the programming for you.)" I'd say that whatever "better at programming" is quickly evolving. AI is a tool like high level languages, IDEs, autocomplete or all the different types of code analyzers. How is ignoring a powerful tool like AI going to get you better a…

That’s like saying that going to the gym is worthless, because you can rent a forklift which can lift so much more weight without even a sweat.

The human brain/body requires resistance/challenges, otherwise it will always choose the lazy road and won’t improve.

Re: Advent of Code 2023's new AI/LLM Policy

#45

Post by deafpolygon »

frankfrank13 wrote: post #23

I love Advent of Code. Genuinely the most fun I've had coding since school. I like this policy, although its impossible to enforce, which is great since Advent of Code is like, purely a hobby? But surely, this years leaderboards will still be crushed by AI-tool-assisted-speedrunners. But that won't take away how fun it is for me to do it.

At the least, you can create your own leaderboard with friends.

Re: Advent of Code 2023's new AI/LLM Policy

#46

Post by miki123211 »

I think this rule is going to backfire.

It's pretty unlikely for AOC to penalize people who use LLMs in any way (they have no way of detecting such use). This means there's going to be two groups of competitors, the honest ones and the ruthless ones. The ruthless group will probably be much smaller, but, considering how popular AoC is, probably big enough to completely overwhelm the honest group.

To be clear, the "ruthless" group won't be clueless people using Chat GPT for absolutely everything, but people who could very well solve the tasks on their own and figure out a way to leverage LLMs as efficiently as possible.

A rule permitting LLMs would give everyone an equal footing.

Re: Advent of Code 2023's new AI/LLM Policy

#47

Post by yunwal »

lsy wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm a dinosaur but I'm utterly mystified by folks who are interested in making the leaderboard or even solving AoC puzzles with AI assistance. To me it feels like going to a 5k charity run, taking a motorcycle to the finish line, and parading your gold medal around. Like, who are you impressing? And are you even proud of yourself? I understand the appeal of using the best and fastest means when there are real-w…

> Is it fun to hit over and over?

Last year, AI was only able to solve the first 3 or 4 problems, so it's really not like using AI takes all human ingenuity out of the equation. What it does is enable you to autocomplete sub-problems that are already solved problems so you can focus on the good stuff. I'd personally prefer if there were 2 leaderboards - one with AI, and one without. Motorcycle races are fun too :)

Re: Advent of Code 2023's new AI/LLM Policy

#48

Post by lgeorget »

mistrial9 wrote: post #28
lsy wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm a dinosaur but I'm utterly mystified by folks who are interested in making the leaderboard or even solving AoC puzzles with AI assistance. To me it feels like going to a 5k charity run, taking a motorcycle to the finish line, and parading your gold medal around. Like, who are you impressing? And are you even proud of yourself? I understand the appeal of using the best and fastest means when there are real-w…

Lance Armstrong Foundation on the line for you...

The incentives to cheat in a professional competition are more obvious since the money you earn is related to your performance.

In the case of AoC, the only objective incentive I can think about is impressing a recruiter. Maybe it's enough if you're motivated enough.

Re: Advent of Code 2023's new AI/LLM Policy

#49

Post by miki123211 »

Art9681 wrote: post #21

Seems like they need to adapt the level of difficulty to the new world of developer tooling. An AI may be able to write a starter template and used wisely can move the project forward, but it still requires knowledge and expertize to build a system of systems even with the AI. This is an opportunity to change our expectations of developer potential. Up the stakes and innovation will soon follow. Edit: This is also an…

I wonder whether this year's AOC authors are going to run their problem descriptions through Chat GPT first and adjust them to trip Chat GPT up.
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