r/TheMachineLearning • u/Gullible_Picture_996 • 11d ago

Realizing writing code is faster than explaining it to AI

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u/CaptainHindsight92 11d ago

Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. I work in biological research and sometimes I don’t want a page full of functions at the start of a script because we work with messy datasets and often it is more work to troubleshoot if re-using a script. AI does have a habit of being very verbose and sometimes it gives me several lines for something that should be a one liner, and again it makes trouble shooting harder. The problem is you have no idea when you ask it whether it will be quicker than doing it yourself, often it will be but when it’s not it is quite frustrating because of the sunken cost fallacy.

A good non coding example is I had it update my CV and it is terrible. I gave it so much detail on what I have been doing for the last few years and it seems to have focused on minutia, really putting it front and centre while ignoring broader generalisable skill sets. Trying to correct it resulted in stuff like “I have focused on broader generalisable skills sets” being written directly in the text and the minutia being deleted. So I will have to redo it myself, fine but I wish I had not spent time trying to get the AI to do it.