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    How Will Chat GPT Impact Software Development?

    If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last couple of months, you have probably heard of ChatGPT. You might have used it and seen the magic yourself. You know why people are going crazy and that it lives up to the hype. But is a part of you (the programmer) worried about what it may mean for your career?

    What is ChatGPT?

    Introduction

    GPT-3 is a state-of-the-art language model developed by OpenAI. It is capable of generating human-like text and can be used for a variety of natural language processing tasks, including generating responses in a chat-like setting. GPT-3 stands for “Generative Pretrained Transformer 3,” referring to the type of machine learning model it is and the fact that it is the third iteration of the GPT series. It is a very large model, with 175 billion parameters, which gives it the ability to generate high-quality text.

    That’s not my answer. It’s what ChatGPT replied when I asked it about itself.

    The Hype Around ChatGPT

    ChatGPT has created a blizzard on the internet. OpenAI’s chatbot has broken all the records and has crossed 1 million users within one week of its launch. 

     

    ChatGPT was made available for public testing on 30th November 2022. OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company, builds it. The company is responsible for creating software like GPT-3 and DALL-E2. 

     

    Hundreds of chatbot screenshots went viral on the internet, especially on Twitter. The fans of the ChatGPT spoke of the tool to be astonishing and scary at the same time. 

     

    How is the Model Trained?

    ChatGPT was unveiled in a public beta form slightly before Christmas. It is a chatbot powered by the GPT-3.5 large language model (LLM) designed to use generative AI and natural language processing (NLP) to produce text that is almost indistinguishable from that written by humans. Due to its impressive abilities, it quickly went viral and has so far amassed millions of users.

    AI tools will work depending on the training they will get from their expertise. It has various methods of training the AI models with chatbots and ChatGPT, which are almost similar. It is trained by making use of Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback.

    Its method includes various steps like collecting the demonstration data, training the supervised policy, gathering the comparison data, and the training reward model. It will optimize policy against a reward model by assisting the PPO reinforcement learning algorithm. The terms used here are related to machine learning and Artificial Intelligence which you refer to separately if you are new to AI.

    OpenAI has used its older AI model, InstructGPT, to employ the methods which can use to train it in ChatGPT only with minor variations in the data collection setup.

    Strengths and Limitations

    Ask any questions and ChatGPT will give you an answer (probably!). ChatGPT is an impressive software that can do almost anything you ask of it. It answers questions, writes poems, and writes articles, among many other things. It gives suggestions on how to go about a project and can make a content strategy for your business.

    However, what has shocked many who make their living from writing software is that it can also create computer code. Tell it to do so, and it will happily create web pages, applications, and even basic games in any of several different programming languages. These include Python, C, and Javascript, some of the most commonly used languages for software development.

    As impressive as ChatGPT is, it still has some limitations:

    • ChatGPT can give you incorrect answers, which might need to be more helpful and valuable. It has limitations in training the model, like it needs a source of truth while the RL training. Moreover, the supervised training may lead to a model that answers queries from its point of view rather than users.
    • It is sensitive to slightly rephrasing in the input. It may consider the questions incorrect and twerk in the input.
    • It makes using specific phrases redundant, and I will reject it. This issue arises because of biased trained data and over-optimization of the model.
    • It will easily guess the response to the unclear questions rather than asking for clarity from the users.
    • However, a ChatGPT will give someone the bias and provide the answers to discriminatory questions. Therefore, Moderation API will solve this issue.

    It can only create relatively simple programs. Ask it for something too complex – such as a sophisticated game or business application, and it will admit its weakness and tell you that the task is currently beyond its abilities.

    Impact of AI on Software Development

    The use of AI in coding is not new. AI-assisted coding tools are becoming increasingly popular. Low code and no code tools have been around for a while too. The introduction of ChatGPT will impact software development, but no one can tell how things will shape up in the future because no one knows or has a crystal ball.

    We have already seen AI being applied in Github Co-Pilot, and I’ll bet that within a short time, we will see the technology from Chat GPT being applied directly to your IDE to assist you! The technology and potential are huge and can be applied in many different industries, optimizing the way of working and allowing people to become more efficient and effective in their work!

    Here is an example of how ChatGPT can write code. The results in this chat are nothing short of impressive. ChatGPT provides in-depth answers, code examples, and an explanation of the code itself.

    I have been using ChatGPT to test the extent of its capabilities. The great thing about this model is that it understands your context. Depending on the prompt, it can suggest different approaches to a project, make strategies to acquire new customers, and write boilerplate code.

    I understand if you feel demotivated to learn coding after seeing all this. If you are new and you see that some software can do in a second what will take you hours, you might wonder if it’s worth learning how to code. You might also ask yourself this million-dollar question:

    Will ChatGPT Replace Programmers?

    NO!

    The job of a programmer is not simply writing code. A programmer also has to deal with turning ideas into desired solutions. I find it difficult to believe that this programmer will be able to effectively replicate that million-dollar idea that you have in the exact way you would want it to be.

    Another point I would like to note is that Chat GPT is not all-knowing. ChatGPT can give you wrong answers. Sometimes, helpfully, it’ll specifically warn you of its shortcomings. This is so common that Stack Overflow has banned solutions from the software. It could churn out answers to your questions in a very authoritative manner, but that does not mean that they are always right.

    The Future of Software Development

    ChatGPT will more likely transform how we do software development! Today, developers use Stack Overflow, Google, etc., when stuck on a problem or need to start a project but doubt an approach to their project!

    Chat GPT can assist with tedious and repetitive software development tasks, saving developers time. While it is not likely to replace software engineers, it has the potential to transform the way software is developed and how developers make the best use of their time!

    It can be used to generate frameworks quickly, write boilerplate code and outline builds of applications, giving input into questions such as how data should be structured and what user interface features are needed.

     

    As a result, it can be great as an aid to “box-ticking” – in other words, ensuring that your code structure covers all the bases needed for your application to get the job done.

     

    It’s often been written that as quickly as ChatGPT makes job titles redundant, it will create new ones. ChatGPT seemingly has the ability to accelerate many routine tasks hugely – both in coding and in other roles – but doing so will involve new skill sets. This includes developing the skills needed to develop the prompts that will get it to do what’s needed.

    Concluding Thoughts

    I think Chat GPT will be a great addition to helping developers, but I don't think it will replace developers, at least not for now and in the next many years to come! There is still a long way to go to know and build full applications and have context, design, and business strategy in mind!

    So my conclusion is that it is a super cool and awesome tool and will disrupt many industries. I think it will help people save a lot of time, not only developers but also copywriters, webmasters, and many more industries. Overall, I think people will become more efficient using tools and technology like Chat GPT, and for that, I see this as a huge success.


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    About the Author

    Kamal Rastogi is a serial IT entrepreneur with 25 yrs plus experience. Currently his focus area is Data Science business, ERP Consulting, IT Staffing and Experttal.com (Fastest growing US based platform to hire verified / Risk Compliant Expert IT resources from talent rich countries like India, Romania, Philippines etc...directly). His firms service clients like KPMG, Deloitte, EnY, Samsung, Wipro, NCR Corporation etc in India and USA.


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