How to get coworkers to stop giving me ChatGPT-generated suggestions?
workplace.stackexchange.com
workplace.stackexchange.com
Put it in a text file for pasting repeatedly, and ignore any replies of protest.
The only answer I received was from a guy who copy-pasted it into an "LLM detector" and uncritically copy-pasted the output for me. This response got several thumbs-up from management and mentors.
Geez, if I'd wanted that kind of crap answer I could've obtained it myself, without asking "experts" for their human opinions.
What was requested was personal "expert" judgment, what was received was the unendorsed output of a tool which no one can hold accountable.
The conscientious people in the chat will have a hard time ignoring an unanswered query, so answering with the tool's output alone forms a sort of compromise.
This can potentially be defused by first stating what you think and asking for a second opinion, but of course, the easy out there is to simply endorse whatever is already on the table (maybe like your senior folks).
I was only suggesting that the situation could be more nuanced than a coworker implicitly suggesting "just google it for fuck's sake", but for all I know, it wasn't.
Sht in / Sht out. Everybody happy.
Years back during big outsourcing project, this never ending conversation (between human teams) were big part of it.
This should illustrate that it can be helpful, but it's just aiming to please whether or not the solution is workable or sane.
I have found that you can reduce that behavior if you prompt it correctly, though.
> User: how can I pass two parameters to a hugo partial as positional parameters (without using a dict)?
> ChatGPT: If you want to pass parameters as positional arguments without using a dictionary, you might need to work around this limitation. One approach is to use a custom data structure, such as a slice or an array, to emulate positional parameters. Here's an example:
{{/* In your main template */}}
{{ partial "yourPartial.html" "value1" "value2" }}
{{/* In yourPartial.html */}}
{{ $param1 := index . 0 }}
{{ $param2 := index . 1 }}
[ChatGPT has also suggested in other runs that the values can be accessed with {{ .Param1 }} and {{ .Param2 }}]> User: Does that work?
> ChatGPT: I apologize for the confusion in my previous response. I made an error in the example provided. Hugo's templating system doesn't support passing parameters as positional arguments directly, and my previous example was incorrect.
I’m concerned that people’s desire and ability to read content from coworkers will significantly decrease, because…why spend my life reading something that “Bob” didn’t even write?
I’m not the only one thinking about this. M365 Copilot even has a “Make it sound like me” button…
If I ever spend a long time composing an email, it's usually because I'm trying to make it as short and clear to read as possible. What's that old quote, "forgive me for the length of this letter; I don't have the time to make it short"?
OpenAI has one of the fastest-growing software releases in history. It's kind of insane how after a year this is already starting to alter people's communication styles. Technologists will have to start asking "why do people still insist on doing this", even with all the discussion about incorrect information coming up. Well, because they wanted to, they could, and nobody has told them "no" yet.
I hope the consequences of such a large-scale software rollout are considered next time. If you have to stop and stay "we should educate people about the misuses of this," then some proportion of the population won't be educated or reject being educated outright and do what they want. In my view, the only thing preventing people from throwing around ChatGPT suggestions in inappropriate contexts is... not giving them ChatGPT. To remain naive to the possibilities lest they get excited and unwittingly unleash them on everyone, regardless of true their intentions - as had been the status quo up until a few years ago. Draconian legislation outlawing GPUs or LLMs are more divisive a solution than the general public just not being aware of the possibilities of LLMs.
I know this is unrealistic, however. "Time for people to embrace the tech and move on" has become a thought-terminating cliche. As a programmer, I'm lost as to what to say or do about this.
I've seen accusations and suspicion of HN commentators giving ChatGPT responses. Accusing someone of using ChatGPT here has become something more nuanced than an insult, but still sows discord. If it's coming to this, I think it is worth examining for what purpose we build the things we do.
If that’s all you bring to the table… well, I can use ChatGPT myself and we can save on head count.
It seems like the first step should just be ignoring it or communicating the issue to them. Something like setup a meeting to go through a couple of examples of the flaws in extreme detail, that the solutions many times lack the context to come up with a great answer, you appreciate they're trying to help you figure out the solution with ChatGPT but it's not necessary because you also have access to ChatGPT and leverage it when you can.
As an employee, before I escalate any issue I always try to do my best to fix it myself first (barring some efficiency gain like it's far easier for someone else to resolve). And as a manager I appreciate reports who do the same.
Are they? Adults usually employ critical thinking and his artist colleagues obviously dont. It’s not OP’s task to explain the flaws in openai’s product. Top reply is right - raise it with their manager. If the artists are unhappy they can contact openai’s customer support for details on why the product doesnt work as advertised.
Have a nice little adversarial set up.
> I then have to take the time to explain why ChatGPT's proposed solution wouldn't work, which is tedious and difficult when the other persons do not understand many of the basic ideas involved. They also seem skeptical, and I get the idea they feel I'm incompetent because as I understand it ChatGPT is very useful in their setting, and they have come to believe it to be the ultimate source of knowledge.
In the end the problem is that the artists don't seem to trust the developer.
My basic response would be "If ChatGPT knows, let it write and commit the code. If it can't do that, then let me do my job."
Btw, this is not a new problem. Even before LLM's widespread popularity, the same problem occurred with those coworkers quickly Googling an answer they do not understand and submitting that as a suggestion.
Although I sympathize and I'm seeing this exact behavior in my own workplace and it's only going to get a lot worse.
Wait for self preservation to tidy up the loose ends
Asking ChatGPT to provide explanation for why the ChatGPT provided solution wouldn't work is an obvious course of action.
What's postulated by ChatGPT without understanding can be dismissed by ChatGPT without understanding.
Most buyers of "creative work" are perfectly happy to pay a premium for something that looks remarkably like something -else- that impressed them, even though this is orthogonal to the purpose of working with an artist.
I don't blame (actual) creative artists for dumping this craftwork drudgery onto AI, but it's hard to say what long-term consequences of tapping an ever-dwindling reserve of unexploited prior creative art will be.
Maybe the world will end up like one of these ancient cultures whose creative inventory crystallized a century or two into their development and remained the same for the next 500 years until they collapsed.
You will be surprised how often ChatGPT will correctly explain why or how the answer it has given you is utter nonsense. It is fascinating in a way.
"Just squeeze the stone harder" is bad advice for getting blood.
even the uncensored (less RLHF'd) models do this - apologize after negative feedback and attempt to fix.
And "it's" only means "it is", the possessive is "its". You probably knew that, but didn't realize your own mistake without negative feedback.
Is this based on your experience?
My experience with ChatGPT is that rarely it apologises or attempts to fix something that is correct, though sometimes it does apologise and give you an alternative or the exact same working solution.
This only makes sense if you believe LLMs are something more than they are. As someone who knows how LLMs work pretty well I don't. The presumption here is that the following advice is 100% better or correct and I also don't believe that.
What a shitty place that website has become, dang!
The pre-objectivity police StackOverflow was sooo much more useful (2010ish). 85% of the top 1000 questions had incredibly well written and insightful answers to subjective questions. Things like "How do I become a better software engineer?" which is far more useful than "How can I rename a local Git branch?"
For a time these bled out into other smaller stack exchange communities, but many eventually fell to the objectivity police.
"photoshop has created a dichotomy --- those who are below-average in their skills will see it as an improvement, while those who are above average will see it as regression."
"the automobile...
"the camera...
"the printing press...
signed: someone who really does not like these LLM's. Not for what they can do, but for the doubt they bring to the table. This is probably the same feeling as when digital image manipulation got good and you could no longer trust photos.(not that you ever really could. photos, even unaltered ones are notoriously easy to show only what you want them to.)
Prompt engineering (within the context of ChatGPT) is more useful for jailbreaking than using it for its intended purpose, aside from which, the complaint of the OP from the linked post is that their coworkers do not understand the output, if they did, they would not rely on ChatGPT as a smokescreen.
Why would you just say this?
I suspect “5 Why’s” would show that people making these poor suggestions are the symptom, not the problem itself.
GPT can be a fantastic time saver, but it is unable to check itself.
You absolutely need to do the research to check it and correct its output.
It's like a power tool: potentially very powerful, but it'll make a huge mess if you let it run out of control.
> I take the time to understand and consider each suggestion, not rejecting anything out of hand, and share them with my team members (of which there are 17).
The issue is the time it takes to explain _why_ these are bad ideas to non-technical (and skeptical) colleagues.
I think my default response would be (regardless of the ChatGPT instructions):
"I looked it over and it doesn't actually work. ChatGPT is good for many high level things but when the specifics get technical, is struggles and invents solutions that don't exist; like a bloom filter. Ask ChaGPT what a bloom filter is."
It's messing up the dynamic where creatives come up with blue sky stuff and developers come to a compromise on a possible solution. Now you have this AI model hallucinating plausible, but fake solutions.
The model says what they want to hear because it is a chicken, not a pig in this scenario.
A five year old asks chatGPT how to achieve world peace. The response is not only possible but easily affordable on a short timeline. Do I care that a 5 year old got it from ChatGPT? I guess not. A part of me would want all the adults on the planet to stop and acknowledge how tragically ineffectual they are, but as far as whether the source matters...nope.
Good point. Thanks for letting me think through it.
If not, I have a pacemaker I would like to sell you.
[1] https://civitai.com/models/28059/icbinp-i-cant-believe-its-n...