The official ChatGPT thread - the next big thing?

[BigPiney]

I have been working most of the summer on a big coding project. I started out using ChatGPT Pro to help design and build the code. I would paste context into a chat on the ChatGPT website and then copy back the code it creates. The results were amazing. Then I tried Claude Pro and it was even better at code design. Then I got a license to Cursor and achieved another major upgrade with agent programming. Agent programming gives you a chat window in the IDE and it has complete access to your entire code base. It queries ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini (mainly Claude) based on the question you are asking and makes changes directly to your code. Results are mind-blowing. Then someone turned me on to Claude Code which is agent programming from the command line - it is exceptional at deep reasoning.

Hard to overstate what a revolution this is in coding. You can be 50x more productive than you could be a year or two ago. That is not an exaggeration. I am building a python package to perform a kind of engineering analysis that is currently done by a suite of commercial packages that cost ~$10K per year. I am about 85% there in 3 months of my spare time. AI is helping me design, code, test/debug, and document in markdown. I am going to finish it and test it for a while and then publish it as a free open source library. Will be fun to see what happens.

AI and agent coding has turned CS upside down. Lots of companies laying off or hiring fewer CS grads. You still need people in the mix, just not so many.

there was an interesting post on CB last night: https://www.cougarboard.com/board/me...ml?id=35697083

I don't code but I found his concern and yours in quick succession interesting. Like you have said, I have also heard amazing things about it. Just interesting to hear some of the issues out there.

[Jeff Lebowski]

there was an interesting post on CB last night: https://www.cougarboard.com/board/me...ml?id=35697083

I don't code but I found his concern and yours in quick succession interesting. Like you have said, I have also heard amazing things about it. Just interesting to hear some of the issues out there.

Claude Code has implemented some changes recently to try to crack down on some of the over-usage issues related to password sharing, etc. I have the $20/month plan and it generally gives me plenty of tokens but in the last few days I have reached my limit by the afternoon. So I just switch back to Cursor and keep on chugging. Full-time programmers should shell out for the $250/month version because it is still worth every penny.

All of these AI companies are losing money right now as they scale up and build market share. There will be some kind of equilibrium eventually.

[falafel]

I use ChatGPT ($20/mo version) for legal tasks quite a bit. I have also used Grok, which a friend of mine thinks is better.

However, both services have gone FAR down hill for me in the last 6 months. I routinely (shouldn't have to be routine, i've built it into the custom GPT I'm using) tell it NOT to use any authority that I have not provided to it, yet lately it CONSTANTLY hallucinates new authorities (mostly cases with holdings that simply don't exist), even when I said please don't give me authorities. It is to the point where I've had to scale back my usage because it was actually slowing me down with all of its mistakes and I no longer felt like it could give me a reliable output. Very frustrating.

[beefytee]

I haven't dabbled as much as I would like in AI yet, but I've had a little exposure to Cline, and Github Copilot. Both are basically plugins for VS Code (and other IDEs) and can use underlying models like Claude.

You can use Cline for free with limited tokens and it looks like GHCP has a free version now too.

[MartyFunkhouser]

I use ChatGPT ($20/mo version) for legal tasks quite a bit. I have also used Grok, which a friend of mine thinks is better.

However, both services have gone FAR down hill for me in the last 6 months. I routinely (shouldn't have to be routine, i've built it into the custom GPT I'm using) tell it NOT to use any authority that I have not provided to it, yet lately it CONSTANTLY hallucinates new authorities (mostly cases with holdings that simply don't exist), even when I said please don't give me authorities. It is to the point where I've had to scale back my usage because it was actually slowing me down with all of its mistakes and I no longer felt like it could give me a reliable output. Very frustrating.

I had an increase in that problem but have been able to get it to stop.

[falafel]

I had an increase in that problem but have been able to get it to stop.

Tips?

[MartyFunkhouser]

Tips?

I actually uploaded a case from Utah that had an attorney sanctioned for hallucinated cases. Asked it to summarize it for me. Then had a follow up conversation with it about this why it cannot do this. That it could have professional repercussions.

[Bo Diddley]

I gave chatgpt a list of names, birthdates, locations and death dates in England. I asked it to look at online databases to cross reference and find a location of any graves. I had a really hard time getting it to stop giving me false matches where the dates and locations weren't close.

It was interesting that one of the false matches was for a convert to the church from London. It fooled me for a minute before I remembered I didn't have any ancestors from London itself.

[BigPiney]

I mainly use Gemini because I like giving google all my data and I just need the free crap it tells me. Mainly I am using it to try and improve my bench press. Yes, super important. I did bench my body weight 3 sets of 4 last week. Not great, but I am getting there.

Anyway, for my refereeing I was given a paper master schedule of games that I could be doing. With Gemini I took a picture of the paper and it was able to add the dates to my calendar. It was really easy and saved me a little time, but just made me think how amazing that really is.

[Pelado]

Since it's already included in my Office subscription, I've gravitated toward Copilot. I've been using it a fair amount lately. I started using it to write descriptions and come up with tags for the videos on my YouTube channel.

I've since been asking it a lot about travel issues, credit card benefits, and kidney transplant stuff. I wouldn't say it's replaced Google search for me, but I'm using Google less because of Copilot.

It is pretty impressive. There are still quite a few areas where it needs improvement, though.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Since it's already included in my Office subscription, I've gravitated toward Copilot. I've been using it a fair amount lately. I started using it to write descriptions and come up with tags for the videos on my YouTube channel.

I've since been asking it a lot about travel issues, credit card benefits, and kidney transplant stuff. I wouldn't say it's replaced Google search for me, but I'm using Google less because of Copilot.

It is pretty impressive. There are still quite a few areas where it needs improvement, though.

For general stuff I use a combination of ChatGPT and Claude. Both are great.

[YOhio]

Cloudflare just released their own coding platform that looks really promising. I've been fooling around with it this morning and it's impressive. So far it seems as good as Replit/Lovable and way better than Firebase Studio.

https://build.cloudflare.dev/

[YOhio]

Google had a few incredible releases this week with updates to Gemini, Nano Banana, and Notebook. Just absolutely incredible work. If you use Notebook check out the updates to the studio. Full video overviews, slide presentations, and incredible infographics.

One fun use case is creating visual recipe instructions. This is JL's Massaman Curry he posted back on CougarGuard. The prompt was: "Create step-by-step recipe infographic for massaman curry, top-down view, minimal style on white background, ingredient photos labeled according to the pasted recipe with dotted lines showing process steps with icons (slow cook, boiling pot, etc.), final plated meal shot at the bottom."


Gemini_Generated_Image_rec6ncrec6ncrec6.png

[Jeff Lebowski]

I just created a video summary of some content using the new tool in Google Notebook LM. It did an amazing job. Mind blown again.

[BigPiney]

I am not seeing slide presentation in the Studio. Maybe because I am using the free version.