Adding a feature because ChatGPT incorrectly thinks it exists

I've found this to be one of the most useful ways to use (at least) GPT-4 for programming. Instead of telling it how an API works, I make it guess, maybe starting with some example code to which a feature needs to be added. Sometimes it comes up with a better approach than I had thought of. Then I change the API so that its code works.

Conversely, I sometimes present it with some existing code and ask it what it does. If it gets it wrong, that's a good sign my API is confusing, and how.

These are ways to harness what neural networks are best at: not providing accurate information but making shit up that is highly plausible, "hallucination". Creativity, not logic.

(The best thing about this is that I don't have to spend my time carefully tracking down the bugs GPT-4 has cunningly concealed in its code, which often takes longer than just writing the code the usual way.)

There are multiple ways that an interface can be bad, and being unintuitive is the only one that this will fix. It could also be inherently inefficient or unreliable, for example, or lack composability. The AI won't help with those. But it can make sure your API is guessable and understandable, and that's very valuable.

Unfortunately, this only works with APIs that aren't already super popular.

From my perspective that’s fascinatingly upside down thinking that leads to you asking to lose your job.

AI is going to get the hang of coding to fill in the spaces (i.e. the part you’re doing) long before it’s able to intelligently design an API. Correct API design requires a lot of contextual information and forward planning for things that don’t exist today.

Right now it’s throwing spaghetti at the wall and you’re drawing around it.

Maybe. So far it seems to be a lot better at creative idea generation than at writing correct code, though apparently these "agentic" modes can often get close enough after enough iteration. (I haven't tried things like Cursor yet.)

I agree that it's also not currently capable of judging those creative ideas, so I have to do that.

This sort of discourse really grinds my gears. The framing of it, the conceptualization.

It's not creative at all, any more than taking the sum of text on a topic, and throwing a dart at it. It's a mild, short step beyond a weighted random, and certainly not capable of any real creativity.

Myriads of HN enthusiasts often chime in here "Are humans any more creative" and other blather. Well, that's a whataboutism, and doesn't detract from the fact that creative does not exist in the AI sphere.

I agree that you have to judge its output.

Also, sorry for hanging my comment here. Might seem over the top, but anytime I see 'creative' and 'AI', I have all sorts of dark thoughts. Dark, brooding thoughts with a sense of deep foreboding.