121–130 of 161 posts
Like, it's fine for you to use AI, just like one would use Google. But you wouldn't paste "here are 10 results I got from Google". So don't paste whatever AI said without doing the work, yourself, of reviewing and making sense of it. Don't push that work onto others.
I’ve noticed this trend in comments across the internet. Someone will ask or say something, the someone else will reply with “I asked ChatGPT and it says…” or “According to AI…” ChatGPT is free and available to everyone, and so are a dozen other LLMs. If the person making the comment wanted to know what ChatGPT had to say, they could just ask it themselves. I guess people feel like they’re being helpful, but I just d…
The irony is that the disclosure of “I asked ChatGPT and it says…” is done as a courtesy to let the reader be informed. Given the increasing backlash against that disclosure, people will just stop disclosing which is worse for everyone. The only workaround is to just text as-is and call it out when it's wrong/bad, AI-generated or otherwise, as we've done before 2023.
I find a good workaround is to just say "some very quick research of my own leads me to ...", and then summarize what ChatGPT said. Especially if you are using e.g. an LLM with search enabled, this is borderline almost literally true, but makes it clear you aren't just stating something completely on your own.
Of course, you should still actually verify the outputs. If you do, there is not much wrong with not mentioning using the LLM, since you've don't the most important thing anyway (not be lazy in your response). If you don't verify, you had better say that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. On the other hand, there's a difference between "I one-prompted some mini LLM" and "A deep-thinking LLM aided me through research with fact-checking, agents, tools and lots of input from me." While both can be phrased with “I asked ChatGPT and it says…” or “According to AI…”, the latter would not annoy me.
LLMs are incapable of fact checking. They have no concept of facts.
I’ve noticed this trend in comments across the internet. Someone will ask or say something, the someone else will reply with “I asked ChatGPT and it says…” or “According to AI…” ChatGPT is free and available to everyone, and so are a dozen other LLMs. If the person making the comment wanted to know what ChatGPT had to say, they could just ask it themselves. I guess people feel like they’re being helpful, but I just d…
Isn't it the modern equivalent of "let me Google that for you"? My experience is that the vast majority of people do 0 research (AI assisted or not) before asking questions online. Questions that could have usually been answered in a few seconds if they had tried. If someone preface a question by saying they've done their research but would like validation, then yes it's in incredibly poor taste.
No. With Google you get many answers. With AI you get one. Also we know that AI is unreliable with some possibility, it’s highly probable that you can get a better source on Google than that. This is especially bad when the question is something niche. So, it’s definitely a worse version of lmgtfy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The irony is that the disclosure of “I asked ChatGPT and it says…” is done as a courtesy to let the reader be informed. Given the increasing backlash against that disclosure, people will just stop disclosing which is worse for everyone. The only workaround is to just text as-is and call it out when it's wrong/bad, AI-generated or otherwise, as we've done before 2023.
Except it isn't. It's a disclosure to say "If I'm wrong, it's not my fault". Because if they'd actually read the output, then cross-checked it and developed some confidence in the opinion, they wouldn't put what they perceive as the most important part up front ("I used ChatGPT") - they'd put the conclusion.
Or, if you preface a comment with "I am not an expert, but...", it is not often about seeking to avoid all blame, but to simply give the reader reasonable context.
Of course, you are right, it is also sometimes just lazy dodging.
I do not use AI for engineering work and never will, because doing the work of thinking for myself is how I maintain the neural capacity for forming my own original thoughts and ideas no AI has seen before. If anyone gives me an opinion from an AI, they disrespect me and themselves to a point they are dead to me in an engineering capacity. Once someone outsources their brain they are unlikely to keep learning or evol…
But e.g. ChatGPT with search enabled is often an invaluable research tool, and dramatically speeds up finding relevant sources. It basically automates the spidering of references and links, and also handles the basic checks for semantic relevance quite well, and this task requires little real intelligence or thought. Only once you hit a highly specific and niche technical domain will it start to fail you here (since it will match on common-language semantics that do not often align with technical usage).
For a lot of topics, I now have the reverse feeling that a person who has NOT used an LLM to facilitate search—on basic or even intermediate questions—is increasingly more of a concern.
I’ve noticed this trend in comments across the internet. Someone will ask or say something, the someone else will reply with “I asked ChatGPT and it says…” or “According to AI…” ChatGPT is free and available to everyone, and so are a dozen other LLMs. If the person making the comment wanted to know what ChatGPT had to say, they could just ask it themselves. I guess people feel like they’re being helpful, but I just d…
> someone else will reply with “I asked ChatGPT and it says…” or “According to AI…” I had a consultant I’m working with have an employee do that to me. I immediately insisted that every hour they’ve billed on that person’s name be refunded.
I do not use AI for engineering work and never will, because doing the work of thinking for myself is how I maintain the neural capacity for forming my own original thoughts and ideas no AI has seen before. If anyone gives me an opinion from an AI, they disrespect me and themselves to a point they are dead to me in an engineering capacity. Once someone outsources their brain they are unlikely to keep learning or evol…
> Once someone outsources their brain they are unlikely to keep learning or evolving from that point
It doesn't piss me off, it makes me feel sorry for you. Sorry that you're incapable of imagining those with curiosity who use AI to do exactly what you're claiming they don't - learning. The uncurious were uncurious before AI and remain so. They never asked why, they still don't. Similarly, the curious still ask why as much as ever. Rather than Google though, they now have a more reliable source to ask things to, that explains things much better and more quickly.
I hear you grunt! Reliable? Hah! It's a stochastic parrot hallucinating half the time!
Note that I said more reliable than Google, which was the status quo. Google is unreliable. Yes, even when consulting three separate sources. Not that one has the time for that, not in reality.
You've got it the wrong way around. LLMs do the exact opposite - they increase the gap between the curious and the nots. It accelerates the learning rate gap between them. The nots.. they're in for a tough time. LLMs are so convenient, they'll cruise through life copypasting their answers, until they are asked to demonstrate competence in a setting where none are available and everything falls apart.
If you still find this hard to imagine, here's how it goes. In your mind LLM usage by definition goes like this - and for the uncurious, this is indeed how it would go.
User: Question. LLM: Answer. End of conversation.
By the curious, it's used like this.
User: Question. LLM: Answer. User: Why A? Why B? LLM: Answer. User: But C. What's the tradeoff? LLM: Answer. User: Couldn't also X? LLM: Answer. User: I'm not familiar with Y, explain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not saying it's the same as working with a jr developer. I'm saying that not using something less skilled than yourself for less skilled tasks is stupid and self defeating. Yes, when someone builds a straw man you ignore it. There is a huge canyon between never use AI in engineer(op proposal) and only use AI for all your engineering(op complaint).
There's a very good argument for not using tools vended by folks who habitually lie as much as the AI vendors (and their tools). I don't want their fingers anywhere in my engineering org, quite honestly. Given their ethics around intellectual property in general, I must assume that my company's IP is being stolen every time a junior engineer lazily uses one of these tools.
If so, congratulations for being old or belonging to the 0.01%. Good luck finding a first job where that holds in 2025.