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I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated code

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Re: I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated code

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you overestimate the amount of skill a newb can quickly gain on their own. I taught myself to code, but it took a whole summer (aka free time that adults don't get) and I had access to my dad (who was a software engineer himself) to answer lots of questions.

I read a "Teach yourself $language in 10 days" book in a weekend, and was banging code on Monday to create the first v0.1 in a week. Of course the code was absolutely horrendous, but it worked. I still have a copy of that old database that was used, and over the years, I have turned to it as I've learned new things and have even rewritten the UI a couple of times. It has helped me stay up to date with new trends as i…

Perhaps you're a genius then.

I am quite sure most people who have only learned programming for one weekend would write much worse code than ChatGPT.

Re: I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated code

#192
post #185
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more than one mistake in the code given, and I tried just once. "Create Python code for iterating a file with a cache." class CachedFileIterator: def __init__(self, file_path): self.file_path = file_path self.cache = [] # List to store cashed lines self.current_index = 0 # Index for the current line to read def _read_lines_from_file(self): """Read lines from the file and cache them.""" with open(self.file_pat…

Garbage code is bad enough, but it's not like people have never had to walk juniors through mistakes before LLMs. But this is actually so much worse for that same reason - the type of developer who'd submit Copilot output (I can call it that, as it's definitely not code) for a PR is unable to respond to any comment beyond asking Copilot again and wasting everyone's time with 6 more rounds of reviews. I've literally h…

> "You can't ask for another code review until your code passes these."

Such a good idea :-) Maybe for job applications too and any at home work sample tests

Re: I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated code

#193
Same, but for academic documents.

It used to be that a 'bad' document had things 'missing', which were easy to spot and rephrase / suggest improvements.

Now a 'bad' document is 50 pages of confusing waffle instead of 5, you need to get through the headache of reading all 50 to figure out what 'sentence' the person was trying to express at the place where an autogenerated section has appeared, figure out if the condensed document is something that actually had any merit to begin with, THEN identify what's missing, and then ask them to try again.

At which point you get a NEW 50-page autogenerated document and start the process again.

F this shit.

Re: I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated code

#194
I can empathize, but am also wondering if some of these are feature requests in disguise. For “how to call api” docs, sample code, and even client libraries can be generated from your OpenAPI specs. Link to the docs in every reply. The more complex asks could be translated “build this endpoint and charge me for it”. If all else fails, set up partnership with devs who want to fix/build customers crap and figure out some copy to direct the more complex asks to them.

Re: I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated code

#195
> Often this takes the form of trying to access an endpoint that does not exist, or read a property off the API response that does not exist. After probing a bit more, my suspicions are usually confirmed — ChatGPT hallucinated that endpoint or property

This is an opportunity. Add another tier to your pricing structure that provides an AI that assists with coding the API connection. Really simple Llama 3.1 that RAGs your docs. Or perhaps your docs fit in the context already if the API is as simple as it sounds.

Re: I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated code

#196
post #5

Hilariously, the target market for the author's API seems to be the same as the top post on HN today[0]: "traders". I think amateur "trading" attracts a specific brand of idiot that is high/left on the Dunning Kruger curve. While taking money from idiots is a viable (even admirable) business strategy, you may want to fully automate customer service to retain your sanity. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4130…

Out of topic, but: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking/dunning-... > The two papers, by Dr. Ed Nuhfer and colleagues, argued that the Dunning-Kruger effect could be replicated by using random data.

The more I'm reading this article the less I understand their point. Is there an actual paper that describes how their "random data" is generated?

I can also generate random data that looks like any distribution by carefully choosing the random distribution. What's their point?

Re: I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated code

#198

Someone mentioned "hallucination-based API design" on twitter (I cannot find it now). It's designing API by LLM hallucination. If there is a common hallucination API call, just add that API. This will make the API more "friendly" and resemble common similar APIs. Considering that LLM can hallucinate in different ways unpredictably, not sure whether it will work in practice.

Idk if "hallucination-based API design" specifically is The Way.

There might be other ways of achieving the same goal. Also,LLM hallucination is changing/improving quite rapidly.

That said, "Designed for LLM" is probably a very productive pursuit. Puts you in the right place to understand the problems of the day.

Re: I'm tired of fixing customers' AI generated code

#199
> The worst is when a request starts out simple — I help them fix one hallucination — but then that customer wants to build more complex logic, and somehow I’ve set the expectation that I will provide unlimited free support forever. I’ve gotten a number of angry messages from customers who essentially want me to build their whole app for free.

Welcome to the life of any consultant/support agent/open source maintainer ever. AI isn't the problem here, managing expectations is.

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