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I'd rather read the prompt

claytonwramsey.com

81–90 of 880 posts

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#81
post #35

I fully support the author’s point but it’s hard to argue with the economics and hurdles around obtaining degrees. Most people do view obtaining a degree as just a hurdle to getting a decent job, that’s just the economics of it. And unfortunately the employers these days are encouraging this kind of copy/paste work. Look at how Meta and Google claim the majority of the new code written there is AI created? The world…

> I fully support the author’s point I don't. I think the world is falling into two camps with these tools and models. > I now circle back to my main point: I have never seen any form of create generative model output (be that image, text, audio, or video) which I would rather see than the original prompt. The resulting output has less substance than the prompt and lacks any human vision in its creation. The whole po…

> We just made this with AI, and I'm pretty sure you don't want to see the raw inputs unless you're a creator:

I am not a creator but I am interested in generative AI capabilities and their limits, and I even suffered through the entire video which tries to be funny, but really isn't (and it'd be easier to skim through as a script than the full video).

So even in this case, I would be more interested in the prompt than in this video.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#82

> I say this because I believe that your original thoughts are far more interesting, meaningful, and valuable than whatever a large language model can transform them into. Really? The example used was for a school test. Is there really much original thought in the answer? Do you really want to read the students original thought? I think the answer is no in this case. The point of the test is to assess whether the stu…

> Do you really want to read the students original thought? Why else would you become a teacher, if you didn't care about what your students think?

Because you want to pass on knowledge? I am not saying there aren't ANY situations where a teacher cares about what their students think, but the example given isn't really one of those times. The question is not one that has many opportunities for original thought; it is a basic question that everyone who knows the answer will answer similarly. The entire purpose is to ascertain if the person understands what was taught, it isn't meant to engender a novel response.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#84
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fully support the author’s point I don't. I think the world is falling into two camps with these tools and models. > I now circle back to my main point: I have never seen any form of create generative model output (be that image, text, audio, or video) which I would rather see than the original prompt. The resulting output has less substance than the prompt and lacks any human vision in its creation. The whole po…

Yes, depending on the model being used, endless text of this flavor isn't all that compelling to read: "Tall man, armor that is robotic and mechanical in appearance, NFL logo on chest, blue legs"., And so on, embedded in node wiring diagrams to fiddly configs and specialized models for bespoke purposes, "camera" movements, etc.

TBH, this video is not that compelling either, though — obviously — I am aware that others might have a different opinion.

Seeing this non-compelling prompt would tell me right off the bat that I wouldn't be interested in the video either.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#85
> The model produces better work. Some of my peers believe that large language models produce strictly better writing than they could produce on their own. Anecdotally, this phenomenon seems more common among English-as-a-second-language speakers. I also see it a lot with first-time programmers, for whom programming is a set of mysterious incantations to be memorized and recited.

AI usage is a lot higher in my work experience among people who no longer code and are now in business/management roles or engineers who are very new and didn't study engineering. My manager and skip level both use it for all sorts of things that seem pointless and the bootcamp/nontraditional engineers use it heavily. Our college hires we have who went through a CS program don't use it because they are better and faster than it for most tasks. I haven't found it to be useful without an enormous prompt at which point I'd rather just implement the feature myself.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#86
Relatedly, there was a major controversy at work recently over the propriety of adding something like this to a lengthy email discussion:

> Since this is a long thread and we're including a wider audience, I thought I'd add Copilot's summary...

Someone called them out for it, several others defended it. It was brought up in one team's retro and the opinions were divided and very contentious, ranging from, "the summary helped make sure everyone had the same understanding and the person who did it was being conscientious" to "the summary was a pointless distraction and including it was an embarrassing admission of incompetence."

Some people wanted to adopt a practice of not posting summaries in the future but we couldn't agree and had to table it.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#88

I fully support the author’s point but it’s hard to argue with the economics and hurdles around obtaining degrees. Most people do view obtaining a degree as just a hurdle to getting a decent job, that’s just the economics of it. And unfortunately the employers these days are encouraging this kind of copy/paste work. Look at how Meta and Google claim the majority of the new code written there is AI created? The world…

> Most people do view obtaining a degree as just a hurdle to getting a decent job Then fail to actually learn anything and apply for jobs and try to cheat the interviewers using the same AI that helped them graduate. I fear that LLMs have already fostered the first batch of developers who cannot function without it. I don't even mind that you use an LLM for parts of your job, but you need to be able to function witho…

Lots and lots of developers can't program at all. As in literally - can't write a simple function like "fizzbuzz" even if you let them use reference documentation. Many don't even know what a "function" even is.

(Yes, these are people with developer jobs, often at "serious" companies.)

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#89
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people do view obtaining a degree as just a hurdle to getting a decent job Then fail to actually learn anything and apply for jobs and try to cheat the interviewers using the same AI that helped them graduate. I fear that LLMs have already fostered the first batch of developers who cannot function without it. I don't even mind that you use an LLM for parts of your job, but you need to be able to function witho…

> I fear that LLMs have already fostered the first batch of developers who cannot function without it. Playing the contrarian here, but I'm from a batch of developers that can't function without a compiler, and I'm at 10% of what I can do without an IDE and static analysis.

I've seen this comparison a few times already, but IMHO it's totally wrong.

A compiler translates _what you have already implemented_ into another computer runnable language. There is an actual grammar that defines the rules. It does not generate new business logic or assumptions. You have already done the work and taken all the decisions that needed critical thought, it's just being translated _instruction by instruction_. (btw you should check how compilers work, it's fun)

Using an LLM is more akin to copying from Stackoverflow than using a compiler/transpiler.

In the same way, I see org charts that put developers above AI managers, which are above AI developers. This is just smoke. You can't have LLMs generating thousands of lines of code independently. Unless you want a dumpster fire very quickly...

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#90
post #75

ChatGPT English is set to be the a ubiquitous, remarkably inefficient data transmission format that sits on top of email. I wish to communicate four points of information to you. I’ll ask ChatGPT to fluff those up into multiple paragraphs of text for me to email. You will receive that email, recognize its length and immediately copy and paste it into ChatGPT, asking it to summarize the points provided. Somewhere off…

Exactly what I thought as well, just better worded.
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