When AI refuses to code be glad we still can
Did you hear the one about the developer and the artificial intelligence (AI)? Neither of them wanted to programme computers.
Writing on the forum of AI development tool Cursor, user janswist said that the applications had cut him off after about 800 lines of code.
So far, so usual: surely it was just kicking the user out of ‘freemium’ mode and upselling them into a monthly subscription, right? Not quite.
Cursor ‘decided’ to share some age-old wisdom with the user: you need to do the actual learning if you want to understand things.
“Creating code for others can lead to dependency and reduced learning opportunities,” the AI reportedly told him, in response to a request for more code. Amusing, yes. And given that, just prior to the arrival of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022, seemingly every politician on earth was spouting the ‘learn to code’ mantra, there is plenty to be amused about.
However, at least someone appears to have had the foresight that allowing people to work skill-free might be a problem.
According to Ars Technica, the AI may have learned how to refuse like a senior developer ‘helping’ a junior colleague by reading forum posts on Stack Overflow. Others suspect, however, that the behaviour was created intentionally.
The latter is the better outcome, frankly. Having now been subjected to barrages of chabot-written e-mails, not to mention social media posts, I am reminded that some people find writing a difficult task and, therefore, are only too happy to take any help they can get.
And yet, just like the generations who had their basic maths skills hobbled by the arrival of calculators in schools, being able to form a thought and then express it in a way that another human can understand is a fairly crucial ability. Why bother, some will surely say.
Naturally, the same is true of coding, and indeed any task that demands human cognition.
What is also true is that all skills are dulled by lack of practice, and however painful learning – and, god help us, thinking – may be, they are worth the effort.
And as we now, apparently, live in an era when Douglas Adams’ spoof of 1970s industrial disputes – the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Person striking against a machine – sounds like an actual potential workplace confrontation, perhaps we should be alright with the idea that some human activities just demand some difficult thinking and, whether in spite of that or because of it, are worth the trouble.
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