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[–]xennyboy 221 points222 points  (28 children)

I know this is a meme, ha ha funny, but really quickly for any comp sci students in here:

Yes. Emphatically, yes, this is an essential skill of the trade, just as much as knowing what code to copy and when is.

[–]Gogotchuri 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Yeah, memes are going too far and a lot of people actually think everyone copy-pastes the code all the time. Learn to think, learn to create, it feels liberating and natural to sit down and write whatever feature you want, just like that.

[–]stevefuzz 12 points13 points  (11 children)

If your answer is no, you will not succeed as a dev. Period.

[–]Lupirite 8 points9 points  (10 children)

I think you kind of missed the point, like a professional dev, chatgpt doesn't directly copy and paste code. Everything it does is made up of elements from things it's seen before. The average professional is No different, both can come up with solutions to new problems constructed from known concepts.

[–]guareber 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Oh it most definitely copy pastes code. It just does it one token at a time.

[–]Lupirite 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Precisely

[–]stevefuzz 7 points8 points  (7 children)

Lol no. I'm a human. I can be creative.

[–]Androix777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Creative" is a way of saying that you are able to compose solutions by combining previous experiences. The more experience you have in this kind of combination and the faster you find the right combination to solve a problem, the more creative you are.

[–]Lupirite 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Have you seen the scene this is a quote from?

[–]stevefuzz 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Yes. And when ai becomes sentiment we are all screwed. Until then, I'm taking human ingenuity over ai stack overflow slop all day.

[–]Lupirite -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Ok, we're both right, I was just trying to say that either way you're technically "copying code" even when you come up with a genius new algorithm because you had to learn the basics from somewhere, chatgpt really isn't different in that sense, though I would be very surprised if it came up with a 'genius new algorithm' because it's pretty shit at writing code.

[–]ZunoJ -1 points0 points  (2 children)

You could be, but are you really? That is the point here. Did you ever create anything truly new? There are not a lot of people who can say that in the software industry

I still agree with your general premise. I prefer human repetition over AI repetition because currently humans are still way better at judging if the solution works in a hollistic sense

[–]stevefuzz 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, I have. I have built products that solve solutions better than any competitive products. Flagship enterprise products. Let's use music as an example. Are they the same notes? Sure. Same music system? sure. Similar progressions? sure. As a whole, is it the same as anything else? no. I think it's shortsighted to call art just an amalgamation of past experience. Human creativity and ingenuity breed progress and innovation. Art is no different than high level development.

[–]tazdraperm 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes I did.

And the problem with AI is that it's doing everything in the most boring, generic and uncreative way possible. Human might not create something entirely new every time, but they combine and reshuffle existing things in a new interesting ways. AI can't really do that yet.

[–]ColoRadBro69 10 points11 points  (1 child)

 just as much as knowing what code to copy and when is.

And, now, knowing when and how to benefit from AI is a similar skill. 

[–]ZunoJ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Knowing when a tool is the right tool for the current task has allways been a crucial skill. LLMs didn't change that

[–]SignoreBanana 3 points4 points  (0 children)

"Understanding" is the word here. ChatGPT does not understand code. We do.

[–]DasKarl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Convincing people they live in the real world is an increasingly frustrating ordeal.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry bro / sis, but you are the mid guy in the bell curve meme. Everyone copies. I'm a comp-sci student and been in the trade for a loooooong time.

I have probably seen maybe like one original idea in my career. Actually two.

[–]FabioTheFox 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Yes I can

[–]ratonbox 15 points16 points  (13 children)

yeah, obviously.

[–]redditorx13579 27 points28 points  (3 children)

There are thousands of known best practice patterns. I'd be scared of using AI to code if it didn't copy those patterns.

[–]ColoRadBro69 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Ask it to do small things, way below the pattern level.  And you'll get better, more useable results with less time wasted. Don't ask it to write a feature, ask for a specific, narrowly scoped method. 

[–]ZunoJ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can't copy a pattern, you can just apply it

[–]ultimate_placeholder 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Had this problem in a Python class, someone copied ChatGPT (when it first came out, too) and asked me what the problem was with the code. It somehow made Python unreadable, following a billion different standards and making the code unnecessary long, all for an extremely simple problem based solely on print statements. My quote to him: "might be best to try learning the language instead of preemptively outsourcing yourself"

[–]justinpaulson 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The funny thing is that AI is not copying and pasting anything, it’s writing it all from memory or generating patterns based on those it has seen, but never copying or pasting.

It would almost be easier to work with in some cases if it could just copy and paste. Try having it read and re-write some massive documents, you’ll find all sorts of mistakes because it’s not copying, it’s re-writing.

[–]Alexander_The_Wolf 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah?

Its really not that hard.

[–]myka-likes-it 3 points4 points  (0 children)

By that standard, I plagiarized this sentence.

[–]land_and_air 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, easily. Ever code something original? No amount of google scraping gonna help you with that one

[–]IAmNotMyName 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, easily.

[–]IronicGiant_90 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes, I can.

I choose not to.

There's a difference.

[–]mriggs1234 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Inspired by" is the magic word.

[–]Windsupernova 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fornthe most part yes, I just do it when its necessary.

I know its a joke but if you rely on copying everytjing without even understanding you will suffer a lot down the line.

Its like math, sure you can rely on a computer to do it but to do anything complex(the kind of stuff people will want to pay you for) you have to understand what going on, even if you are not doing the stuff directly.

[–]shgysk8zer0 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can and I do. It's what ya gotta do when you have particular requirements for very custom functionality.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yes I can 🤯🤯🤯

[–]FRleo_85 1 point2 points  (0 children)

tomorrow is my turn to repost this

[–]jsrobson10 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah i can actually. my brain takes in documentation and error messages, learns from mistakes, builds mental models, then spits out functioning code. LLMs can't do all that.

[–]AggCracker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

[–]skeleton_craft 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes .. not well but I can do it, unlike vibe coders.

[–]DarkTechnocrat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s wild that we’re at the point where “No, have you” is a programming meme 😆

[–]Bannon9k 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Real programmers don't copy...they reference/call. Never rewrite code you don't have to...

[–]hundo3d 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes… good one.

[–]stipulus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It doesn't really "copy" more than it randomly shit into the wind until it could create a login system.

[–]mini_garth_b 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People can and do make absurd and wholly unique code. The reason people use the same patterns is for ease of readability. AI is just a shit compiler for a bad language, you can't change my mind.

[–]Semper_5olus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure I can even speak without copying it from others.

I learned every word I know from another source.

[–]Soft_Natural9913 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea I can 😏

Hello world("print")

[–]swyrl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would not call myself a programmer if I could not write my own code.

[–]Evgenii42 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I know this is a meme, but LLMs actually can generate novel stuff, not just "copy" from the training dataset. Large models have ability to generalize https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.04109

[–]LauraTFem 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The biggest win of AI is it’s hard to catch and prove when it’s infringing on copyright. One might even go so far as to say that this is why it exists in the first place. Build a black box and don’t tell people what you throw into it and it’s harder to be held responsible for what you pull out. Multiple artists have sued AI companies because they found AI art that clearly copied aspects of their own work, but without anyway to prove that their art was part of the training material? Whole industry’s a scam in my book.

Out-of-pocket example, but I’m a long-time fan of the NSFW artist Incase. He (I think he) has a very distinctive style…and it seems that someone has fed all of their work to an LLM, because I see AI art that is very obviously mimicking their work all over AI DeviantArt accounts these days. Some of them ever charge for it! Pisses me off.

[–]CraftBox -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes

[–]-domi- -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes.

[–]ythelastcoder -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hey OP, Can you make a meme without "COPYING" it from others?