Officially ban ChatGPT and AI

Mod edit:
See also: chatGPT response to "Arduino forum: my code doesn't work"

tl;dr: Ban ChatGPT.


Other fora have placed a ban on contributions from ChatGPT.

I say we should on these as well.

A hard ban on simply cut/pasting the entirety of an AI response. We've seen it: no attribution, no caveats or disclaimers, not a trace of anyone trying to disguise the source. Often no evidence that the response was even read for plausibility.

So far, the AI stuff stands out like a sore thumb. Soon people will figure out how to make AI responses look like their own work. The trouble will be deeper then.

We've seen noobs with code made by ChatGPT come and present that "work", and ask for help. I know there will always be noobs, but in the same way we encourage them to "post the code", we should gently suggest to them that ChatGPT is no good for noob coding and we'd rather see what they are actually bringing to the table. So we can help appropriaelty.

I'm not opposed to using ChatGPT, or google for that matter. I have done myself. Using google to verify a memory or otherwise improve an answer before posting some kind of help is fine. In fact, googling ahead of typing something off the top of my head often results in my just posting the search terms and inviting the OP to "google it", like they didn't start there.

As for getting code out of ChatGPT, I have had success and failure. Only because I sorta know what I'm doing was it is easy to see when ChatGPT produces nonsense. Only because I sorta know what I'm doing was it possible to lead ChatGPT to a workable solution. Sometimes I could not.

ChatGPT code is as bad or worse than any code a noob finds, makes no effort to understand and then brings here for help fixing.

ChatGPT and google are both way more powerful in the hands of someone who kinda knows how to engage the tool. Who knows something to begin with.

Part of my argument here is that the policy should be clear and manifest. It should not be vague, it should be neither arbitrary nor capricious. It should be crystal clear - these fora are for humans. Who have problems or have something to offer to ppl with those problems.

a7

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Just out of interest, could you share some examples?

I agree with you by the way.

[edit]

This may be relevant:

https://www.axios.com/2023/01/31/openai-chatgpt-detector-tool-machine-written-text

example Download to Opta using Ethernet

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There was one recently, someone wanted to change the functionality of a pin on an ATmega328P.

There was a post (now removed) that initially looked coherant that suggested the OP investigate the possiblity of pin multiplexing.

But of course, the ATmega328P does not have pin multiplexing, as we all know.

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I'm on board. I think, "chatGPT told me..." is fine, the code that it produces requires an expert to validate/invalidate, which makes it worthless here. Such expert would rather guide a forum member through the creation process, or post their own solutions or examples.

Zero tolerance for any of that code. We waste enough time with unattributed, copy and pasted code, as thing now stand.

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"a hard ban of ..." can not be executed and therefore makes no sense for me but should be introduced as policy.

It's the same story like with students homeworks. Some might don't like them but they will come up.
If you are not pleased with the given input/question from a TO, either ask him for more information or just go your way and help someone else. It's as easy as that.

Furthermore, there were already threads where I told the TO should use ChatGPT ... it's one way to get rid off of people.

A note "tell us when you are posting Code from ChatGPT" is fine for me.

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So are we going to ban that too ?

How do you suggest that a ban on AI produced code is implemented ? If you don't want to encourage users to post such code then either ignore it or post a suitable reply saying so

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No because a forum members mind can be informed, changed, improved. Not so chatGPT.

How do you suggest that a ban on AI produced code is implemented ?

Moderator deletion.

In my opinion, it does make a big difference whether sources are attributed, in the case of any information that is presented. But with unattributed AI code, it's a double whammy.

We're here to help. Pragmatically, you are not helping a beginner when you repair AI output. It lends an air of legitimacy to it, that is undeserved. Beginner should not come here and have lazy, unworkable design habits vindicated.

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Good idea, but we'd probably need AI to determine what to ban. :wink:

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Hey, I know... I'll use AI to post helpful replies... how do you feel about that, forum moderaters?

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Personally, I'm not for banning AI (this won't work anyways). I remember when the first calculators were banned from the classroom ... then quickly (in relative terms) became a requirement.

Watched a CNN special on AI ... Bill Gates said the human - machine interface is quickly becoming just spoken language.

Disclaimer: He also said 640K is all you'll ever need.
Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: This time I agree with his assessment.

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I'll deal with that one in a moment...

Here's one I deleted earlier:

Based on the screenshot you provided, it looks like the issue you're facing is that the DbContext class is not being displayed in the "Data context" dropdown list when you try to scaffold a controller using Entity Framework in Visual Studio.

Here are a few things you can try to troubleshoot this issue:

  1. Check that the DbContext class is defined in your project: Make sure that you have a DbContext class defined in your project and that it is located in a namespace that is accessible to the controller that you are trying to scaffold. You can also try rebuilding your project to ensure that the DbContext class is properly compiled.
  2. Check that Entity Framework is installed: Make sure that Entity Framework is installed in your project. You can do this by checking that the Entity Framework NuGet package is installed in your project. You can also check that the Entity Framework templates are available in the "Add New Item" dialog.
  3. Restart Visual Studio: Sometimes, restarting Visual Studio can help resolve issues with scaffolding.
  4. Manually specify the DbContext class: If the DbContext class is still not showing up in the "Data context" dropdown list, you can try manually specifying the DbContext class in the "Model class" field. To do this, click the "..." button next to the "Model class" field and type in the fully-qualified name of your DbContext class (e.g. MyProject.Data.MyDbContext).
  5. Check for updates: Make sure that you have the latest version of Visual Studio and Entity Framework installed, as newer versions may have bug fixes or improvements that could resolve the issue.

I hope one of these solutions helps you resolve the issue. Let me know if you have any more questions!

What I notice is that the ChatGPT responses tend to be verbose, generally correct, related to the subject in hand but completely miss the point of the question.

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I support the chatGPT ban because it generates very well-formed and well-formulated responses, which in fact can be (and often are) complete nonsense. However, it is not possible for a beginner to distinguish such nonsense from a truly valuable answer.
Therefore, such answers create a lot of informational noise.

Moreover, since chatGPT draws its knowledge from the network - as such answers accumulate on the forums, the AI ​​will begin to process its own answers and include it in their knowledge base and its answers will become even more delusional :slight_smile:

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I simply ignore such requests for help.

Or we can use this:

grafik

But this will cause a lot of work for the mods.

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It's always an easy option. At the present time, there aren't a huge number of instances. But I feel that unless something proactive is done, it will become a big noise issue. The abuse of chatGPT is likely to increase.

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I am not the best coder but I still can figure out ways including this site to get my code salved. I actually use a lot of Arduinos in manufacturing.
I just bought chat GPT subscription. the reason I am using it is it can write an incorrect code in 1 minute vs. me I'm slow. so with a couple tweaks I can get it. I have not used it for my Arduino code yet because I haven't needed it. but I wanted to do something in processing code that I was new at. I was able to get a couple things working but still struggled. then I tried to use chatGPT and it was so fast it helped a lot.
So in my opinion it is ok to use AI as long as you have the basics to help you move along.

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Right, there is the pragmatic problem of how to ban it. It's easier to say "ban" then to do.

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I'm sure there's a chatbot that could help.

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I've been coding for a long time. I think you will find that if you have to tackle a really big or complex project, it will stand in your way instead of helping. But YMMV.

And, as you describe it, you don't have any problem, question or lack of understanding about your code. The people we are talking about, do.

The key difference here is that you actually give it a shot whereas others seem to just go "It didn't work, fix it for me" and that's obnoxious IMO.

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