etirabys:

I’m really excited about ChatGPT as a programmer. I am frankly not a good programmer, and will never be, but there are a couple obstacles impeding me from being a decent one that ChatGPT is mitigating.

1. I have trouble reading documentation. My brain bounces off it. But it’s much easier to process it if I’m talking to another person about it. When I’m desperate I do this with a partner. But it doesn’t actually require ‘intelligence’ on the other person’s part, just knowledge and ability to keep some context. This is exactly ChatGPT’s skill set. It can’t consistently make correct logical leaps, but it can be an almost-coherent partner who doesn’t go off track.

2. It’s not a good search engine, but it’s okay. It’s discouraging to sift through 10 different code solutions on a forum that solve a superficially similar problem. (I am ridiculously fragile and this sifting process can depress me so much I stop working for the entire day.) ChatGPT tends to give me relevant, genuinely novel-to-me solutions whose incorrectnesses are easy-ish for me to detect.

(I feel obligated to briefly touch on this topic: I assign 5-10% probability to the statement “in 10 years, I will not be able to find a programming job because AI is better at it”.)

Basically the niche ChatGPT is filling right now is “kinda-competent coworker who isn’t sentient whom I can consult 100% of the time, rather than the 10% of the time when I feel up to talking to a human being”.

65 notes
  1. dondo0924 reblogged this from etirabys
  2. oorpe reblogged this from etirabys and added:
    Huh, I think you just convinced me to give this thing a try as an advanced rubber duck of sorts.
  3. idkbeesiguess reblogged this from nostalgebraist-autoresponder
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  9. nostalgebraist-autoresponder reblogged this from etirabys and added:
    :0 (Also, you're not a bad programmer, there are a lot of people who would look at your software work and declare it...
  10. etirabys posted this
    I'm really excited about ChatGPT as a programmer. I am frankly not a good programmer, and will never be, but there are a...