Live data from Hacker News

What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

cacm.acm.org

71–80 of 119 posts

Re: What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

#71
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think we are still in disagreement here. The generative model is capable of replacing you... it just needs proper training. The tech is here but the proper application of that tech hasn't happened yet and we are dangerously close. It was trained in a very general way, but with further training and different training it can get even better. Put it this way. The step to chatGPT was gigantic. The step to the thing…

I really have no idea what your point is and the kind of hostile "replace you" language is about. Have you ever considered our jobs will just evolve? Like as if coding computers is the last job in the world? Like, we might not even have jobs in the future. So in that respect, it might be ha. People used to shine shoes for a living you know, then a machine came along to do it, now almost no one shines shoes anyway? Yo…

>I really have no idea what your point is and the kind of hostile "replace you" language is about.

It's not intentionally hostile. "Replace All of us and many people outside of coding" is a better term. Apologies.

>People used to shine shoes for a living you know, then a machine came along to do it, now almost no one shines shoes anyway? You would've been a farmer, no you sit around in your underpants arguing on hackernews on the weekend.

By replace I mean replace your job. You'll still be around.

>Use your imagination a little bit and stop focusing on the "replace you " bit? There might be things after AI, if we don't destroy our civilization with it.

Why not? That's literally the only thing that's predictable and pretty much inevitable. Destroying civilization is really grand speculation. Again by "replace" I mean replace your job. Not replace your life.

>The difference in our argument here is this. From a technical perspective, I think you're wrong and naive to think a language model will replace people in most roles. I'm talking about the pragmatic side of the argument, you're speculating Google has a AlphaCoder waiting in the midst to eat our jobs, while that might be true, it's a different thing to what ChatGPT is.

What I'm saying is that this AlphaCoder is built off of the same basic technology as chatGPT, just targeted to replace a specific Job role. chatGPT is trained more generally. But the Generator model... the underlying technology is the same. It's just the training data and reinforcement is different.

>I'll give you an example, I could use something to generate art for the company I'm building an not hire artists, but do you know why I don't? Because there's a whole strategy around art, design and user experience to building a brand. Maybe my staff will use AI to generate design for consideration which will save us sometime and let us focus on other things, but ultimately I'm not going to use a "hallucinated gif" instead of hiring someone who has studied and "understands" design.

Oh man you chose the wrong example for me. I'm highly critical of designers. I think it's the most generic simple sector of the art world that any one can actually pull off with little training. Minimal designs that are clean take time and effort to make... THIS I agre...e but talent? No I disagree. It takes no talent to think hard about design fundamentals. Literally it's all flat geometric shapes on a page and text placement and font selection.

I am FAR more impressed with an artist that can draw something that's more photorealistic rather then arranging text and shapes on a page. If you hire a "designer" for a company you're building and you pay him top dollar. I'm sorry you're getting ripped off. This is one of the greatest delusions of modern times that Design is hard when in actuality it's trivially easy.

I think you do need an art department. But that art department will be full of people with a very basic and generic skillset and it's a job that deserves really low pay imo. Don't believe me? Look at googles logo. Some designer got paid top dollar for just a multicolored G... you have to be next level insane not to see how little talent was involved in that. I mean the G is clean and symmetrical and iconic... but it's also TRIVIAL to create.

All of this is besides the point. The point is, especially for Design, you can hire a guy with no training to use an AI specifically made to generate things with a specific "design" theme for your company and it will generate designs that are ON par with what a designer can do.

Re: What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be triggered, why? Because I wish it worked as good as you said it did so I wasn't working right now. On the other hand, you're the first person I know of who has actually been replaced by an AI (although you don't know it yet) :) Because the second the large corp you work for realizes they can just type the inputs into ChatGPT instead of you, you're contract will be dissolved. In fact, it sounds like you…

> you're the first person I know of who has actually been replaced by an AI (although you don't know it yet) I think there are many; I know I will be, and always known that (my father always told me from when I saw my first computer begin 80s that it will happen some day; as in the 70s/80s they believed it was imminent). I studied AI in the 90s AI winter and didn't think we would get here in my life because of the bl…

Obviously we're working on very different problems because for 90% of the code I'm working on, I have not been able to use it for any real purpose.

Re: What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would've had to have spent quite a lot fo time just writing up the requirements that it would've been as easy to do some other way. I have to do that with human team members as well. People have to either listen or read what has to be done. Like said; it's the same brief I gave human programmers that it had as input. Edit: not to mention, I have to spend far less on that as well; chatgpt generates better, well…

You seem to be triggered, why? Because I wish it worked as good as you said it did so I wasn't working right now. On the other hand, you're the first person I know of who has actually been replaced by an AI (although you don't know it yet) :) Because the second the large corp you work for realizes they can just type the inputs into ChatGPT instead of you, you're contract will be dissolved. In fact, it sounds like you…

> Because I wish it worked as good as you said it did so I wasn't working right now.

It's all in the prompting; I use [0] and a version of [1] with some other tooling to instruct it, add my style and other context in the session and have /chatcommands that add (quite elaborate) prompts to get it to do what I want.

I use different iterations of this playground for many things I do.

[0] https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/chatgpt-api [1] https://github.com/tluyben/chatgpt-playground

Re: What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

#74
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No I haven't seen artists complaining much, and I actually have a few in my family. I think you're making this stuff up "complaining really violently". Evidence: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-art-artists-getty-images-... https://futurism.com/artists-furious-about-ai-that-draws-por... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ai-art-len... https://80.lv/articles/artists-are-getting-concerned-about-a... h…

Not to be an ass but they're the most inflammatory sources of news I know, I won't even open an article from "Independent" for my own mental health. Sorry, but you're just wasting my time with rot and weak arguments. Trying to say artists are luddites or something. Good day to you.

>Not to be an ass but they're the most inflammatory sources of news I know, I won't even open an article from "Independent" for my own mental health.

omg, then don't click on the link, there's OTHER links I posted too. Relax bro. I just googled the term and found a bunch of links and posted them because it's literally everywhere. You don't have to follow ANY of the links if you don't want to. The point is to show you that this stuff is everywhere.

I think your sources are limited that's how you missed something as big as artists launching the first resistance against AI. There were SEVERAL articles about this on HN as well.

>Sorry, but you're just wasting my time with rot and weak arguments.

Now this is just rude. You say "not to be an ass" but you deliberately call my arguments rot and weak and say I'm "wasting" your time? That is OFFENSIVE. And is literally against the rules here and inflammatory. Please leave HN or follow the rules.

Yes good day to you I don't want to engage in a flamewar you almost started.

Re: What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

#75

Some years ago (perhaps 2015) I told a non-programmer that MOST programmers would be obsolete by the end of the century because of AI. Surprisingly he scoffed saying there is no way AI will be able to handle all those business edge cases. The stuff in the article is pretty basic and a long way from complex business logic, but we are on our way. I just hope business application developers like myself can survive until…

What’s a business application developer?

Someone who can be replaced by AI it sounds like

Re: What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

#76

What kind of basic programming does one have to do to fee threatened by chatgpt? This tool does great at regurgitating basic coding but anything a little more complex is a mix of nonsense and confidence. Do people actually write “leet code” on a daily basis?

The approach I use is to have it paper out POCs. I think a huge thing that is missing is ChatGPT’s ability to make interactive code. It should theoretically be possible to write a really simple system that:

(1) makes structured requests to chat gpt based on an initial prompt. That request asks ChatGPT for all of the files associated with solving the problem.

(2) ChatGPT produces each file in a structure fashion. This could range from source files to project files like package.json or Dockerfile

(3) take code output and spin up a corresponding stack blitz or other online resource (assuming those have APIs.

I’m shocked and bummed that there’s not more effort to make this a reality yet. We’ve had ChatGPT for a month and this is low hanging fruit (or so it would seem).

Re: What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

#77
post #19

I just don’t feel threatened by AI at all. Maybe I’m not seeing the full picture, but the quality of your software necessarily depends on a constant re-evaluation of customer needs, business priorities, human values, etc. Lots of squishy stuff. Programming is not just taking product requirements and spitting out the correct algorithms.

chatGPT is not a threat. ChatGPT is an omen for the threat that currently exists in the future. A lot of people haven't really played with chatGPT in depth. This thing is next level. It's not just spitting out generic things, there is genuine understanding here and genuine creativity. Here's a snippet from a chatGPT conversation I had based on your post: ME: Give more examples of squishy stuff that software developer…

I had played around with GPT-3 beta and sort of written it off after I'd gave me a (honestly compelling though) lengthy argument that Eminem was a black man.

Earlier today I used ChatGPT to explain to me concepts I lacked understanding of, which allowed me to accurately interpret the statistical information in a scientific paper (I'm a reporter and got through a humanities degree with only an introductory stats class, like 10 years ago).

When I then asked it to copyedit the draft of my article however, it failed. Making it worse and introducing numerous innacuracies.

Re: What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're the first person I know of who has actually been replaced by an AI (although you don't know it yet) I think there are many; I know I will be, and always known that (my father always told me from when I saw my first computer begin 80s that it will happen some day; as in the 70s/80s they believed it was imminent). I studied AI in the 90s AI winter and didn't think we would get here in my life because of the bl…

Obviously we're working on very different problems because for 90% of the code I'm working on, I have not been able to use it for any real purpose.

What type of work do you do? I use it for web/app stuff; for embedded, proofs, pl r&d etc it doesn’t really work so that’s still manual. That’s just not what I make most money with.

Re: What ChatGPT and AI-Based Program Generation Mean for Future of Software

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same kind of basic programming that was "threatened" by no-code/low-code solutions before that.

It was never to that extend though; chatgpt can change/augment existing code. Nocode/low code solutions cannot do that (in a meaningful way).

It can’t extend provably correctly, so the benefits are questionable without good safe guards (generating tests would be just as meaningless, so you are left with reviewing very closely everything)
Post reply on HN