Comment by satvikpendem | Hacker News Reader

Comment by satvikpendem | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I've done the same thing, first thing I tried with ChatGPT: https://imgur.com/a/d8LZicq

Prompts:

- Write a simple CRDT implementation in Swift

- How can I make a GraphQL server using Rust using the async-graphql and actix-web libraries?

- Write code to create a Dropbox clone in Rust

- How do I make an HTTP request in Javascript?

However, just like with Copilot, it can introduce subtle bugs. For example, in the Dropbox example, notice how it uses synchronous code in an async function. Also, longer prompts will reach the token limit and get cut off.

Interestingly, this must be what Replit is also using for their AI codegen service too (https://replit.com/site/ghostwriter) since I believe they have some connection to OpenAI, as they got early access to OpenAI's service last year with their previous Codex product (https://blog.replit.com/codex).

The problem with GPT is that it seems to be in an uncanny valley, where it's smart enough to be convincing but not smart enough to be completely accurate. So using it is often lower productivity than just writing from scratch because you have to spend more time carefully going over every line of code for subtle errors.

Indeed, I use Copilot as a glorified autocomplete, just for the next line or next few lines, which I then go over. Usually it saves time because it's what I was gonna write anyway.

I never use it for full function generations, they're almost never correct.

Don't forget tests and documentation, which is something copilot is really good at and can really improve a codebase.

ChatGPT is much better as far as I can tell.

That'll be an interesting job. AI generated code bug fixer. An AI generates all code in bulk and then it's handed to you to fix the 'subtle' bugs they introduced. Those bug fixes go back into training the algorithm so that the bugs die out over time!

> I believe they have some connection to OpenAI

Sam Altman <--> Paul Graham <--> Amjad Masad might be it.

Ah that would make more sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com