[pluijzer]

For me, asking something on the Internet, like on stackoverflow is usually, the very last option. I am too afraid to get ridiculed for it or get scolded for not having put enough effort in my question that already feels more as a thesis. Maybe this is just me and this does not reflect reality but I do have the nagging feeling I a bother somebody with it and it gives a bit of stress. Not so with ChatGPT, I can just ask away and it will always happily give me an answer (unfortunately also when it didn't really know a good one). Though I am happy for the people that just continue asking questions to actual humans and those answering it, if only to continue to feed the model ;)

[TeMPOraL]

> Maybe this is just me and this does not reflect reality but I do have the nagging feeling I a bother somebody with it and it gives a bit of stress.

It's not just you. I'm the same way myself - and was since I can remember. On Internet boards, I very rarely ask questions. I answer, or post tangential thoughts, but don't bother people with questions unless I really need the answer, and exhausted the ways of finding it on my own.

There's another angle to it too - impatience. A big part of my resistance to asking question is the unpredictable, and usually large delay between me asking, and getting any kind of answer. This applies to community Slacks, Discords, etc. Thing is, if I have a question to ask, I usually need the answer right now. If I have to wait, I'll context switch, which is deadly for whatever I was doing at that moment.

ChatGPT is a quite good alternative here. I can ask it a question, and refine it based on the answer if it's too vague. The answers I get either solve my problem or point in the direction of solution (that's true even if AI is having an acid trip). And, importantly, I get the answers near-immediately, with no unpredictable delays. I also don't need to cross some karma thresholds, worry about upvote/downvote ratio (too low -> question dies in obscurity), "use the Google, Luke" answers, moderators locking threads for bullshit reasons (hello StackOverflow), etc.

[red-iron-pine]

> There's another angle to it too - impatience. A big part of my resistance to asking question is the unpredictable, and usually large delay between me asking, and getting any kind of answer. This applies to community Slacks, Discords, etc. Thing is, if I have a question to ask, I usually need the answer right now. If I have to wait, I'll context switch, which is deadly for whatever I was doing at that moment.

Bingo. If I'm in the zone in terms of flow, have the right level of caffiene, etc., having to stop and chase people -- then wait -- breaks that flow. In many cases, it simply punts the flow until tomorrow, or the day after.

[thisgoesnowhere]

I mean the bad parts of this are reflexive. I am also a serial answerer and a rare questioner.

Due to chat gpt I am less likely to go to the forum to look for things to answer. So I assume this will be bad for both people asking questions and looking for answers.

[whstl]

As someone who never asked a question in StackOverflow for what are probably similar reasons (despite being in this career for 20 years), I still find that ChatGPT in this regard is still more like a Google or an improved StackOverflow/documentation search…

It can infer some things, modify variable names to match mine, but for the real hairy stuff I still gotta do the legwork myself, normally by reaching out for the source code.

[surgical_fire]

> I still find that ChatGPT in this regard is still more like a Google or an improved StackOverflow/documentation search…

I agree. And for that reason, it is an excellent tool.

[EniasCailliau]

Have you tried AutoGPT? I've heard that it can do a bit more through iteration. Haven't tried it out yet for coding hard problems.

[whstl]

I did. For the kind of creative/exploratory stuff I’d normally go to the source code myself for, I find that even GPT-4 still hallucinates quite a bit. Even when it has the source code, it still makes up random functions and parameters. Even when the source code is minimal.

It will probably work better in the future, but so far it is a bit limited. Probably a memory limitation more than anything.

[circuit10]

It’s not just you, I also tend to ask people as a last resort

[c1sc0]

Same here. And in many ways it’s been the curse of my life.