alt Hacker NewsFinally someone put it this way! Natural language has embedded limitations that stem from our own mental limitations -the human mind thinks sometimes too abstract or too specific things, and misses important details or generalizations.
As a programmer, I know first hand that the problems or even absurdities of some assignments only become apparent after one has begun implement the code as code, i.e. as strict symbolisms.
Not to mention that it often takes more time to explain something accurately in natural language than it takes to just write the algorithm as code.
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We need realistic expectations for the limitations of LLMs as they work today. Philosophically, natural language is imperfect at communicating ideas between people, which is its primary purpose! How often do you rewrite sentences, or say "actually what I meant was...", or rephrase your emails before pressing Send? We are humans and we rarely get things perfect on the first try.
And now we're converting this imperfect form of communication (natural language) into a language for machines (code), which notoriously do exactly what you say, not what you intend.
NLP is massively, and I mean massively, beneficial to get you started on the right path to writing an app/script/etc. But at the end of the day it may be necessary to refactor things here and there. The nice thing is you don't have to be a code ninja to get value out of LLMs, but it's still helpful and sometimes necessary.
Yes! I have a certain personality preference for abstractions and tend to understand things in an abstract manner which is extremely difficult for me to articulate in natural language.