Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 162 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?

#131

Post by torginus »

bobjordan wrote: post #86
projectileboy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be willing to elaborate on the ways in which the $200/month subscription is better than the $20/month subscription? I’m genuinely curious - not averse to paying more, depending on the value.

Here's why I think it's worth it: 1. Larger Context Window (128K) With Pro-Mode, I can paste an entire firmware file—thousands of lines of code—along with detailed hardware references, and the model can actually process it. This isn’t possible with the smaller context window on the $20 tier. On the Pro plan, I’ve pasted like 30+ pages of MCU datasheet information plus multiple header files in a single go. The model i…

My 2 cents on the long context (haven't used Pro mode, but older long context models):

- With a statically typed language and a compiler, it's quite easy to automatically assemble a meaningful context with 1-2 nested calls of recursive 'Go To Definition' and including the source from that. You can use various heuristics (either from compile time or runtime). It's quite easy to implement, we've done this for older, non-AI stuff a while ago, for trying to figure out the impact of code changes. If you have a compiler running, I'm pretty sure you could do this in a couple days. This makes the long context not super necessary.

- In my experience, long context models can't really use their contexts that well. They were trained to do well on 'needle-in-the-haystack' benchmarks, that is, to retrieve information that might be scattered anywhere in the context, which might be good enough here, but asking complex questions that require the understanding the entire context trips the models up. I tried some fiction writing with long context models, and I often found that they forgot things and messed up cause and effect. Not sure if this applies to current state of the art models, but I bet it does, since sequencing and theory-of-mind (it's established in the story that Alice is the killer, but Bob doesn't know that at that point, models often mess this up and assume he does) are still active research topics, and current models kinda suck at it.

For writing fiction, I found that the sliding window of short-context models was much better, with long-context ones often bringing up irrelevant details, and ignoring newer, more relevant ones.

Again, not sure how this affects the business of writing firmware code, but limitations do exist.

Re: Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?

#132

Post by eps »

nialv7 wrote: post #89
sunaookami wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Status page is updated now: https://azure.status.microsoft/ >Impact Statement: Starting at 18:44 UTC on 26 Dec 2024, you have been identified as a customer who was impacted by a power incident in South Central US and may experience a degraded experience. >Current Status: There was a power incident in the South Central US AZ03 which affected multiple services. We have applied mitigation and are actively validating rec…

Power outage seems really odd. Don't datacenters usually have multiple redundant power supplies + on-site backup power generation? Maybe power "incident" mean something else?

Back in the 00's there was a power outage in downtown Vancouver. It caused Peer1 to fall back to their generators... that weren't tested for ages. They struggled for 5 minutes, gave up and bursted into flames, resulting in the colo not being able to go back online even when the main power was restored.

That was an epic mess. Especially considering they positioned themselves as the most technically sophisticated colo in the region. So, yeah, it happens.

Re: Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?

#133

Post by orlp »

Y_Y wrote: post #120
sunaookami wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Status page is updated now: https://azure.status.microsoft/ >Impact Statement: Starting at 18:44 UTC on 26 Dec 2024, you have been identified as a customer who was impacted by a power incident in South Central US and may experience a degraded experience. >Current Status: There was a power incident in the South Central US AZ03 which affected multiple services. We have applied mitigation and are actively validating rec…

> you ... may experience a degraded experience What an eloquent way to say "our service isn't working".

That's the next stage of deflection after passive voice.

1. In normal and honest language you state things you have done, and their consequences.

2. Passive voice attempts to deflect blame by only stating the consequences as if they just magically occurred through divine intervention.

3. In the next stage they don't even acknowledge the consequences, and instead place the entire issue inside your experience of the facts.

Re: Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?

#136

Post by perching_aix »

orlp wrote: post #133
Y_Y wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you ... may experience a degraded experience What an eloquent way to say "our service isn't working".

That's the next stage of deflection after passive voice. 1. In normal and honest language you state things you have done, and their consequences. 2. Passive voice attempts to deflect blame by only stating the consequences as if they just magically occurred through divine intervention. 3. In the next stage they don't even acknowledge the consequences, and instead place the entire issue inside your experience of the fa…

I don't think this stuff is the work of the devil personally by a long shot.

We don't know what exactly caused the power issue and they might not have had a root cause at the time either. Let's assume that their power redundancy equipment failed, say, due to insufficient maintenance. This is not an active action, it's a passive one (they didn't do their maintenance duties properly and now it blew). So there is nothing to say for point #1 and #2.

There's also the part where they say that the customers they identified as impacted may be experiencing a service degradation. This may sound pedantic, but I think it is not an entirely unreasonable phrasing. Maybe my business isn't actively relying on the resources I have deployed in that datacenter. How would they know (#3)? Should I clean those resources up? Possibly. Depends on my access patterns and other considerations.

It reads like face (and ass) saving legal esque language. But there's a reason face and ass saving legalese sounds like it does.

Re: Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?

#137

Post by Y_Y »

caseyy wrote: post #125
Y_Y wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you ... may experience a degraded experience What an eloquent way to say "our service isn't working".

It’s the same accountability shirking language as when layoffs “have affected you” instead of “I mismanaged this business and as a result I’m firing you”. It’s always the same abstract invisible hand that just keeps affecting everyone! Scott Alexander’s Moloch perhaps :)

> Scott Alexander’s Moloch perhaps :)

I almost wish I hadn't read that blog post because now I see Moloch and and his invisible handprints everywhere.

Anyway here it is: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Re: Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?

#138

Post by [deleted] »

orlp wrote: post #133
Y_Y wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you ... may experience a degraded experience What an eloquent way to say "our service isn't working".

That's the next stage of deflection after passive voice. 1. In normal and honest language you state things you have done, and their consequences. 2. Passive voice attempts to deflect blame by only stating the consequences as if they just magically occurred through divine intervention. 3. In the next stage they don't even acknowledge the consequences, and instead place the entire issue inside your experience of the fa…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?

#139

Post by StefanBatory »

scrollaway wrote: post #122
t-writescode wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.scribbr.com/ai-detector/ says 0% chance.

The post was definitely not AI sourced; underlying thoughts are original and possibly it’s been touched up afterwards. But this is 100% the style of ChatGPT, I would bet a lot on it. It wasn’t an accusation (I don’t think it actually matters in the end), so much as to understand why do it — in a post about ChatGPT usage, it helps understand context: if OP values using it for stuff I wouldn’t value using it for, for e…

I know of a few people who had their style of writing being similar to ChatGPT before ChatGPT was a thing. This could be a case here too, keep that in mind.

(also sucks for non-native speakers or even speakers of other dialects, like delve - apparently it is a common word for Nigerian English)

Re: Ask HN: Is ChatGPT down?

#140

Post by StefanBatory »

mrweasel wrote: post #41
deadbabe wrote: post #35

Don’t understand these people who can’t work without ChatGPT. Just look stuff up on stack overflow.

You joke, but development is getting weird and perhaps to dependent on online services. People can't work when, ChatGPT, Github, AWS, NPM (add any other package manager you'd like) or Stack Overflow (this seems less important these days) is down. These services are accumulative and the chance that any one of of those services being down at any given time is increasing every time we add a new online dependency.

I'm thinking that perhaps programmers in the past were really way better on average. Outsourcing our thinking to our tools will not end up well.
Post reply on HN