Re: [NTG-context] knuth

[Carlos via ntg-context <ntg-context@ntg.nl>]

On Fri, Jun 02, 2023 at 09:58:31AM +0200, Hans Hagen via ntg-context wrote:
> On 6/2/2023 9:27 AM, BPJ wrote:
> 
> > I wonder what Knuth would say about having ChatGPT write computer
> > programs, which I think can be outright dangerous. Either you get shitty
> > code which doesn't work, which is good, or you get shitty code which
> > works which is bad or Really Bad.
> 
> He's pretty clear that he leave that to others and continues with TAOCP.
> 
> wrt you remark: to a large extend these are 'plagiarism' machines so one can
> wonder about more. I suppose it also depends on how original these programs
> are (or become). 


Not original at all. One New Years' resolution ought to be «stop feeding
this whatever created by whoever» 

I've been trying to find a recent (just done a few months ago)
interactive session I had had with ChatGPT but I'm afraid I must have
dd'd the entire drive (just an honest mistake on the wrong drive at
the time while aiming primarily at fixing another drive and there
it went :(

But every interaction with it [chatgpt], was met/replied to with a
digression and paraphrasing on its part. i.e, sorry 'bout that. I
will not make that mistake again. I knew right away it was just
spitting out useless information. Grammatically correct but not
factual. Lacking substance.

I first brought up the invention of the printing press as a starting
point. And I asked it, to write me up an essay with the most interesting
parts

I remember that the point that chatgpt was trying to make, was in that the
printing press challenged the authority of the church. And I remember
I had to go back and forth with it and question that very verb/use of the
word challenging.

If anything seemed clear to me years ago. and also now, by reading
about the printing press and with the publication of the Bible and
later with the Book of Psalms and the first colophon in human hitory
and so forth, is that the invention of the printing press fostered
the establishment of the church. But I can't recall/just don't know
right now if by the time chatgpt had  decided to use ‹challenging›
was implying afterwards or after the establishment of the church, and
the excommunications that followed and so forth. All I know is that
it rewrote it with different paragraphs after I pointed it out. Very
well put nevertheless. But its main argumentative conclusion was the
challenging part rather than cementing/positioning/establishing/ one

Then I thought, heck, let's see if chatgtt is aware of the relatively
recent findings about the printing methods used by Gutenberg and so
forth. But it wasn't very clear on this either. As a matter of fact
it had no clue really about this for example, citing :

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/27/arts/has-history-been-too-generous-to-gutenberg.html

«Johann Gutenberg, the 15th-century German craftsman, has long been
believed to be the father of modern typography. But the secretive
inventor may have to share some of the paternity now. A physicist and
a scholar of rare books at Princeton University who jointly used new
technology to examine some of Gutenberg's texts say he may not have
created the seminal process after all, a finding could rewrite the
history of printing.

The two scholars contend that the metal mold method of printing
attributed to Gutenberg was probably invented by someone else about
20 years after Gutenberg printed his Bible. The method, which involves
punching a letter into a copper matrix that is filled with lead alloy
to create hundreds of identical letters, was the principal way of
printing until after World War II.»

«The discovery was announced on Monday by Paul Needham, the librarian
of the Scheide Library, a private library housed at Princeton, and
Blaise Agüera y Arcas, a 25-year-old graduate of Princeton with a
degree in physics, before a standing-room-only audience at New York's
Grolier Club, a club for book collectors founded in 1884.»

the above link was referenced at the following link  originally, which I had read before 

https://jikji.utah.edu/
 


> I don't see myself using such software, just like I don't
> use all these software coding tools (ide stuff). When I acn't remember what
> I'm doing, or need constant help popping up I should not code. I'm intrigued
> of course, and see valid applications, but wrt programming I'm just not that
> interested. I bet after a few years people get bored with the artificial
> stuff (painting, music, proze, movies, whatever; just hitting buttons
> doesn't make a creative person I guess), unless of course one wants to be
> zombified.
> 
> Hans
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
>               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
>        tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
> 
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / https://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
> webpage  : https://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://context.aanhet.net
> archive  : https://bitbucket.org/phg/context-mirror/commits/
> wiki     : https://contextgarden.net
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> 

-- 
Function reject.

___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / https://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : https://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://context.aanhet.net
archive  : https://bitbucket.org/phg/context-mirror/commits/
wiki     : https://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________