Part of me would like to begin by apologizing (a much maligned tactic) for writing yet another piece on chat gpt.  A greater part of me is unashamed.  It is 2024 and I’ve been tasked with writing about technology,  how can I avoid it?  I’ve used gpt extensively now and I am amazed by it.  The fact that it has captured even us, a population jaded by an incredible pace of technological advance surely says much. There are times however, I find myself looking to place the technology (llms) in some precise place on the spectrum starting at the mundane and ending in the otherworldly, the magical, the mind blowing.  Is this generation of AI more akin to a fancy autocomplete, maybe merely a search algorithm unburdened with the relentless focus of monetization?  Or does the code touch on more, does it portend some artificial life force?  This is one of the questions I hope I get to explore in some small way this term with the AI coder project for cs 467.

I have to admit my excitement, llm’s have almost felt more like a burden in the two terms they’ve been available to me while I’ve been in school.  That probably sounds odd, but really it’s not.  Llm’s like chatgpt are in a grey zone as far as I can tell with regards to university classes.  We as students really have no idea to what extent we should or even can use them.  For me there is certainly a sense of dread when using chatgpt while I’m in a class.  What questions are ethical to ask? What could be considered academic dishonesty?  How much of a disservice to my education am I doing using this tool?  For that reason, my policy has been to leave llms to uses outside of school.  The AI coder project asks me to do the exact opposite.

The project aims to see what we can do with this generation of AI.  Essentially we’ll be using any AI we can get our hands to create a project of our choice!  We’ll get to see how far the AI can get us in a real world project.  Lucky for me, this will give me some further data towards putting AI in its proper place on the aforementioned spectrum.  It seems undeniable at this point that the future of the software industry will be transformed by AI and it’s hard to not believe those who adopt it earliest and discover its use cases will have an advantage in what is currently a competitive workplace.  For these reasons, along with the forbidden fruit of using AI for my schoolwork, I’m excited for the term.