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by raincole 955 days ago
Me: What's 6x6?

You: 36

Me: You cheated! You just cited the answer you memorized! You should have started from addition.

You: ...okay? 6+6=12, 12+6=18, 18+...

Me: You cheated again! You just have 6+6=12 memorized! You should make the rule of addition out of Peano axioms.

You: ...you're being annoying, but okay? First axiom, we define 0 as...

Me: You cheated again! You memorized Peano Axioms! Jesus Christ, is there any intelligent creature left?

2 comments

TBH, people underestimate how much of coding is just memorization. I'm guessing those of us with bad memories understand this more than the ones with good memories. :)

I can't remember how many times I've googled, "how do I create a directory in Python?". Now bard often generates an inline answer for me.

But in this case it's not like that at all. They only saw the NAME of the problem. Like if I said "Page 23 of Mathbook Y, problem number 3". Which happens to be 6x6.
I know this is deep down a bad comment thread, but I thought I'd chime in here.

I have been writing function names and test names, and then telling gpt to fill in the test, which is usually does how I want (maybe with errors, but it tests the correct thing), and then I tell it to fill out the answers.

this is in a thing I'm building that's never been built, with names that I made up (but describe the functionality well)

It cannot have this spot memorized, I just invented it myself

If I gave you a programming problem and all I told you was that the problem name was Traveling Salesman, you might be able to solve it based on that.

If not that, then if I just said "fizzbuzz" to you, I'm sure you would be able to give the solution without me needing to say any other descriptions of the problem

Again, because of memorization, not being able to code.
But in that case, not memorization of the specific problem set, but "programming background knowledge." Hardly something to blame the machine for when we rely on it every day.
Me: I was being in such a blah blah situation... does the article 3 of Digital Government Act applies here?

My lawyer: Hmm the article 3 says--

Me: I knew it! Lawyers are not intelligent...

It said they gave the exercise name, which doesn't sound like just the exercise number but probably mildly descriptive -- and they also gave it function stubs.