Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

These chattering bots merely predict the next N word(s). Software has been doing this for many years—nothing new here.

In the 1990s (yes, 30 years ago, I am that old), word processors started guessing what word we were trying to type. Some called that “auto complete.” It was nice. Not perfect, but nice. Sometime between then and now, we saw IDEs (integrated development environments). If any term ever needed an acronym instead, that one did.

Regardless, these IDEs did auto complete. Start typing the name of a function or variable, the software would look through of list, and show guesses at what it was I was typing. Well, that was convenient. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped me remember things that I new but were a bit murky.

Nowadays (does anyone still use that word?), we have these new chattering bots. They write essays and entire computer programs. WOW! New stuff! Great stuff!

New? Let’s see, in the 1990s, the word processors would predict the next one word. Today, the chattering bots predict the next one thousand words. What’s the difference? Just the difference between one and one thousand. It is N. N is bigger or smaller depending on various things that affect the outcome, but N is just N. Programming? We have gone from N is one to N is a larger number, but it is still N.

Why all the fuss? Why are school teachers at all levels in an uproar over students not learning this or that? It is just N words where is goes from zero to some arbitrary larger number. Same stuff. Nothing new here.

Let’s move on to something of more substance to discuss.