That's what it's actually equipped for. I've been using Google Translate for years to give me wrong answers so I could figure out what was wrong with it. In old-school thinking you have to do it wrong first yourself, in a draft. Now ChatGPT makes all the mistakes for you.
Douglas Adams said (paraphrasing from memory) “the best teacher is a really stupid student and a computer is a really stupid student” so I’m kind of glad we’re still on the Dirk Gently timeline.
I really used to respect your journalism, Matt. It's sad to see what you've become now. Sitting on Bluesky, grossly exaggerating the accomplishments of AI tech bros
As a (mostly retired) freelancer who worked SEO jobs because they were plentiful and I could crank them out at speed, to feed two growing boys post-divorce... I'd say that AI is just the natural progression of the race to the bottom in writing pay scales. I also note, you get what you pay for.
What if, and hear me out, I thought about my word choices to make my writting more coherent and expressive of what I was thinking. Maybe I can invent a process with a catchy name like... "editing."
When I needed to talk through a tough problem, I’d call in one of the junior devs and tell them, “Your job for the next few minutes is to stand there, nod your head, and agree with everything I say.”
This method would usually solve the problem before I finished explaining all of the complications.
This method is also related to "talking to a duck," which has origins in the tech community but apparently they've been forgetting all their good innovations on behalf of shareholders
I admit, it's sobering and deeply funny that at such a primitive halting step toward "thinking machines" or "intelligence complex enough to run a holodeck" the economics of actually doing so outside a TV show are ruinously bad. 'Every time Picard plays Dixon Hill, an entire planet is strip-mined!'
I remember the time when Google founders found out about books and that they contain all the knowledge. The founders were so mind blown that they made google books.
this is like the time on blossom when joey spent so much time writing cheat sheets he could conceal that he unintentionally "hid the answers in his head"
That’s exactly how I feel and is the reason why I tend not to use AI at all. And because I never seen it perform any particularly very good answer. And because it commits huge mistakes when performing tasks that would otherwise make it really useful at work.
AI being shit aside, this is just rubber ducking. Talking out a problem out loud to an inanimate object will often make you think of the solution. Pretty common in programming.
I used to do this with Stack Overflow forum posts.
I'd be afraid of all the obvious criticisms of my question, so I'd keep adding "and it's not X because I checked Y," and ... yeah, rubber ducking is real, and it's beautiful!
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Words are employed to convey ideas; but when the ideas are apprehended, men forget the words. Fain would I talk with such a man who has forgot the words.
~ 莊子, 外物
For the record, though, this sort of thing is actually great. I'll often struggle with a word and start typing things into Google until I remember what the word I was looking for is. Sometimes the autocorrect or spelling helps.
For writing, the benefit of LLMs seems to be overcoming the fear of blank page. It’s also a sort of thinking buddy you can bounce ideas off of without bothering any real people. Not sure these benefits are worth the drawbacks and the cost, though
People have been using creative writing prompt generators for ages, and algorithmic spelling and grammar ads as well. It would be really nice to have these sort of writing tools without a) just being a plagiarism machine, and b) not being the equivalent of ordering Uber eats from the ISS every time.
There’s a famous technique in software engineering called “rubber ducking.” You describe the problem you’re trying to solve to a rubber duck, and in rethinking through explanation, you occasionally find an answer.
They could save a lot of money on using a rubber duck.
Comments
The results have been decidedly for.
Tell these dopes it's the new thing: rawdogging chat gpt or whatever. They'll eat it up.
These men are high on their own farts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
The difference is ChatGPT is less likely to flame you than the programming board
LLM: that’s what i do: write the rote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
This method would usually solve the problem before I finished explaining all of the complications.
"Have you used ChatGPT for your marketing?"
"Uh..."
"Yes or no."
"Umm."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging?wprov=sfti1
I'd be afraid of all the obvious criticisms of my question, so I'd keep adding "and it's not X because I checked Y," and ... yeah, rubber ducking is real, and it's beautiful!
The rest of us have been calling those "photos" since the 1860s.
Remember how Reddit broke people’s brains when it taught the world some of us think with an internal monologue and some just flat out don’t?
What if ChatGPT is teaching the blank-thinkers how to internal monologue? 🤯
It claims it makes no judgments about quality and then proceeds to tell you your idea is the best thing ever.
It's the worst Yes Man
Words are employed to convey ideas; but when the ideas are apprehended, men forget the words. Fain would I talk with such a man who has forgot the words.
~ 莊子, 外物
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
They could save a lot of money on using a rubber duck.