Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mrstone 1226 days ago
I agree. I regularly use ChatGPT to help reword paragraphs to be more succinct. I rarely ask it for actual information that it has to look up. At its core, it's an LLM which models how language is structured, and that's what it's good at.
1 comments
shagie 1226 days ago
It has an impressive amount of understanding about language. There was a meme a bit ago about "Everyone on my floor is coding" and the different reaction of a software developer and a doctor. So I asked for jokes about a doctor and a software developer about the different meanings for the words they used.

    Write five jokes about a doctor and a programmer about the different meanings of words they use.
To which GPT responded:

    1. Doctor: I'm sending you a prescription.
    Programmer: Great! I'll take a look at it and see if I can debug it.

    2. Doctor: I need you to take two aspirin.
    Programmer: Is that enough to solve the problem?

    3. Doctor: I'm going to give you some instructions.
    Programmer: Do I need to compile them or can I just run them?

    4. Doctor: I need you to take a break from work.
    Programmer: Does that mean I should pause the program or stop it completely?

    5. Doctor: I need you to stay hydrated.
    Programmer: Does that mean I should store more data or drink more water?
I will certainly admit that those jokes are awful, but the interesting part of it is that... it did it. I think that 3, 4 and 5 are the "best".

I don't think it understands those things with the ability to reason about them, but that demonstrates more than I would expect from a Chinese room.

    Explain the joke "Doctor: I need you to stay hydrated.  Programmer: Does that mean I should store more data or drink more water?"
returns back:

    The joke is a play on the terms "hydrate" and "store data". In programming, "storing data" is the process of saving information to a computer's memory, while "hydrating" means drinking water to stay hydrated. The joke is implying that the programmer is more comfortable with programming than with taking care of their own health, so they interpret the doctor's advice to stay hydrated as a suggestion to store more data.
link