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GPT is all you need for the back end

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Re: GPT is all you need for the back end

#111

Post by alphazard »

We have already experimented with letting large neural networks develop software that seems to be correct based on a prompt. They are called developers. This is going to have all the same problems as letting a bunch of green developers go to town on implementation without a design phase.

The point of designing systems is so that the complexity of the system is low enough that we can predict all of the behaviors, including unlikely edge cases from the design.

Designing software systems isn't something that only humans can do. It's a complex optimization problem, and someday machines will be able to do it as well as humans, and eventually better. We don't have anything that comes close yet.

Re: GPT is all you need for the back end

#113

Post by zhte415 »

Rooster61 wrote: post #20

Just think, all we need to do is wait for someone to come up with a frontend LLM implementation, and we can all take permanent vacations! The future is now! This entire project would fit nicely in a Dilbert strip.

Have the backend use htmx. Sorted.

Just create a spec file. Or not even bother with that, just a loosely written problem statement. It can choose its own domain name too.

Re: GPT is all you need for the back end

#114

Post by lelanthran »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #95
lm28469 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closer we seem to get the farther we actually are. We're far away from AGI, if we even can reach it with our current approaches, but the latest iterations of "AI" are really good at making people believe it'll be there in 2 years

>We're far away from AGI, if we even can reach it with our current approaches, but the latest iterations of "AI" are really good at making people believe it'll be there in 2 years This is an incredibly bold prediction that isn't supported by the opinions of the majority of people in the field and certainly doesn't have any real backing other than your gut.

> This is an incredibly bold prediction that isn't supported by the opinions of the majority of people in the field

Well, DUH!

     "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
     
         - Upton Sinclair.
The people in the field who are making these promises may even believe it themselves, because their bread and butter comes from it.

Re: GPT is all you need for the back end

#115

Post by dymk »

spelunker wrote: post #88
Swizec wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You thought funny book magicians were just bad at their craft didn’t you? Not so! They’re software engineers from the future dealing with AI-based systems.

I would watch this

Check out Ra by Sam Hughes

Re: GPT is all you need for the back end

#116

Post by mrguyorama »

pluijzer wrote: post #109
folkrav wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT is great at pretending it knows its sh*t.

The internet is full of examples of this but just to add one more data point. I asked about a specific Dutch book, ChatGPT was wrong about the author (it was another author born a century later). I corrected it but got told that the two authors were the same and it was a pseudonym. I ask the birthdate of the correct author. It gave me relatively correct answer with date of birth and death. I then asked about the birt…

ChatGPT is like the friend you have who "knows everything" and routinely "um actually"s people and says fact sounding things with great confidence and if you press them on details continue doubling down on their nonsense with great confidence until you start getting close to them admitting they don't know jack shit and they get really angry.

ChatGPT doesn't do the getting really angry part because it can't feel shame or insecurity about not knowing things.

Re: GPT is all you need for the back end

#117

Post by pbalau »

rco8786 wrote: post #106

And you will almost immediately run into the fundamental problem with current iterations of GPT - You can not trust it to be correct or actually do the thing you want, only something that resembles the thing you want. The description in this link puts some really high hopes on the ability of AI to simply "figure out" what you want with little input. In reality, it will give you something that sorta kinda looks like w…

Regardless of how successful an AI can get at figuring out what the human operator wants, in the end, all it will manage to do is figure out what the human wants or give similar options to what the human asked for. My experience in working with software and being a client for other craftsmen, is that rarely that's what needs done, do what the human wants. The whole idea of a good craftsman is to figure out what the client needs. That was also my job for the past few years, figuring out what my company needs to build next, either as a product, or internal infra, tooling etc. I did end up building the things myself because there are only 4 engineers in my company and I had to do the building bit. An AI will boost my capabilities (automation does that too, but that still needs me to build it...).

Before you tell me that an AI will soon be able to do what I do, we are lifetimes away from that, if it's even possible. That will mean our creation fully understands us, it can understand stupid. If I were religiously inclined, I could even argue that even God failed at such a task.

Re: GPT is all you need for the back end

#118

Post by peter303 »

rco8786 wrote: post #106

And you will almost immediately run into the fundamental problem with current iterations of GPT - You can not trust it to be correct or actually do the thing you want, only something that resembles the thing you want. The description in this link puts some really high hopes on the ability of AI to simply "figure out" what you want with little input. In reality, it will give you something that sorta kinda looks like w…

The 5% to 10% of the output that is factually wrong or socially inappropriate could be a legal nightmare.

Re: GPT is all you need for the back end

#119

Post by abc_lisper »

cmontella wrote: post #64
bccdee wrote: post #57

This sounds like a nightmare lmao. Can you imagine trying to debug a system like this? Backend work is trawling through thousands of lines of carefully thought-out code trying to figure out where the bug is—I can't fathom trying to work on a large system where the logic just makes itself up as it goes.

> a large system where the logic just makes itself up as it goes. What you describe is known as a “bureaucracy”, and indeed, it’s one of the seven levels of hell, and a primary weapon of vogons, next to poetry. That we aspire to put these in our computers, I agree, is unfathomable.

Great analogy!!

Re: GPT is all you need for the back end

#120

Post by pak »

Scarblac wrote: post #77
webscalist wrote: post #51

But is GPT a web scale like MongoDB?

Amusingly, the more Web scale a technology is, like MongoDB or Redux, the more blog articles will have been written about it, making this technique work better. More hype directly translates into more robustness. So yes, I think ChatGPT is already very web scale.

webscalist was referencing a 12 year old joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs
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