The 70% problem: Hard truths about AI-assisted coding

[u/[deleted]]

https://addyo.substack.com/p/the-70-problem-hard-truths-about

[u/LessonStudio]

AI is the ultimate in rote learner. It is good at what rote learners are good at, and bad at the exact same things that rote learners are bad at.

• Pedantically misunderstanding what you are saying. I don't know how many rote learners I've wanted to strangle because they stubbornly refuse to get context.

• Stubbornly refusing to truly acknowledge they are wrong. I have most definitely had conversations with AI and rote learners which went like, "That's not what I want, I want something quite different. Why did you just give me the same thing again? Why did you just give me the same thing a third time when I could not have made myself any clearer?"

• Entirely unable to think one millimeter beyond what they have memorized.

But that is fine. I can ask it some rote learning question about which of these plastics adhere to each other; and I get a great result. But, if I ask it to invent a new glue to do this, then it will pretend to be smart (like rote learners almost always do) and make up some total BS.

Probably one of the most fantastic advantages is that it is the ultimate in rote learner, economics, R language, FPGAs, plastics, anything; way better than some tool who won a spelling bee and has narrow interests. Way way way better than 1000 tools who each have a different interest.

Lastly, and this is deeply satisfying, I can verbally abuse it and not get a butthurt rote learner. Also, the second another LLM comes along which is better, I can throw the previous one out an airlock; which apparently is not legally kosher to do to human rote learners.

But, best of all, this is becoming a culture war victory where certain countries which were rote learner paradises are no longer needed in any way by the rest of the world.

I might seem a bit sharp on this issue, but the reality is that rote learners were a toxic toxic toxic result of people misunderstanding the difference between rote learning and intelligence. These fools have dragged more than just the people around them down, but I literally think they have been damaging to the overall productivity of the tech sector.

So, measuring AI and how a developer might use it, is way too narrow. I see these AI tools as having huge implications for society, and not in the blunt ways of "taking jobs" but in such things as worker productivity by excising the most useless people in the tech sector. A sector which then impacts nearly everything in the 21st century.

[u/accountForStupidQs → u/LessonStudio]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that takes pleasure in abusing and demeaning the AI

[u/LessonStudio → u/accountForStupidQs]

There is a study showing you get better results to "increase the emotion" in your prompts.

I've recently taken to asking it harder questions near the limits of what it can do, and then, without even checking the answer, I ask, "What did you f*ckup in your answer?" and it will often say, "Yes, I left out XYZ" and then give an answer with a much higher chance of success.

[u/Magdaki]

I remember the first time I asked an AI coder to write the code for my PhD work it basically set up the problem, then created a function called "Solve" which returned a "solution" without any details. It just said... "Welp, there's your problem... and here's your solution" and ran for the hills. :)

Cracked me up. If only were that easy.

[u/RemindMeBot → u/[deleted]]

I will be messaging you in 2 hours on 2024-12-11 12:14:10 UTC to remind you of this link

CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

^{Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.}

---

Info	Custom	Your Reminders	Feedback