ChatGPT has a style over substance trick that seems to dupe people into thinking it’s smart, researchers found::Developers often prefer ChatGPT’s responses about code to those submitted by humans, despite the bot frequently being wrong, researchers found.
Anyone who has actually needed a correct answer to a question realized this a long time ago.
The problem is that most people don’t bother checking the answers.
If you need a correct answer, you’re doing it wrong!
I’m joking of course, but there’s a seed of truth: I’ve found ChatGPT’s wrong or incomplete answers to be incredibly helpful as a starting point. Sometimes it will suggest a Python module I didn’t even know about that does half my work for me. Or sometimes it has a lot of nonsense but the one line I actually need is correct (or close enough for me to understand).
Nobody should be copying code off Stack Overflow without understanding it, either.
This hasn’t been my experience. Yes, chatgpt gets stuff wrong, and fairly regularly. But I can ask it my question directly, and can include sample code, and I get an answer immediately. Anyone going on stack overflow has to either google around and sift through answers for relevance, or has to post the question and wait for someone to respond.
With either chatgpt or stack you have to check the answer to make sure it works - that’s how coding goes. But one I know if it works or not pretty much immediately with fairly low investment of time and effort. And if it doesn’t, I just rephrase the question, or literally say “that doesn’t seem to work, now I’m getting this error: $error”
I check and triple check every answer. It’s rarely incorrect in my experience.
But the fact is that you need to check every time to be sure it isn’t the rare inaccuracy. Even if it could cite sources, how would you know it was interpreting the source’s statements accurately?
imo, it’s useful for outlining and getting ideas flowing, but anything beyond that high level, the utility falls off pretty quickly
Ya it’s great for exploring options. Anything that’s raw textual is good enough to give you a general idea. And moreoftenthannot it will catch a mistake about the explanation if you ask for a clarification. But actual code? Nah, it’s about a 50/50 if it gets it right the first time and even then the style is never to my liking