ChatGPT and the viability of replacing humans with circus tricks

OpenAI created something remarkable in ChatGPT. If you ask me what it is, I’ll probably wave my hands a bit, say something about “large language model,” and how it’s credited with solving this year’s Advent of Code amongst other things.

I was skeptical before I tried it. I’ve developed a bit of a gag reflex to the mutant effluence of DALL•E and Stable Diffusion. As a friend in VFX put it to me, it’s a great tool for brainstorming concept art, but not much else. I doubted a chat bot built on similar principles would do any better.

What got me interested enough to overcome my skepticism and try ChatGPT was the primate in me noticing how all the other programmers in the digital jungle were reacting to it. It was a cacophony of exhilaration and fear. Many wonder whether ChatGPT or something like it will replace human programmers. Some despair that it already has. Being a creature of that...