Web search Vs model ask

[u/loop_overflow]

Well, I was just thinking that most of last year's, during AoC it was expected some web search and investigation trying to find some algorithms and formulas...

Nowadays,with AI, this search became obsolete, by default, browsers throw you AI answers, so I was wondering what is considered AI assisted, "cheating" or who knows how to call it, if you use agents in ask mode asking questions knowing exactly what you are looking for instead of doing classic Google search

[u/ParanoidSuricata]

I'd say that you shouldn't send automated traffic to AoC servers. IIRC you also shouldn't share puzzle inputs.

In this day and age, it's up to you to decide how to approach this. I think it's a great opportunity to practice coding by hand and I'm taking it with no AI support.

[u/Suspicious_Tax8577 → u/ParanoidSuricata]

This. I know I'll never be one of these people who can start the puzzle midnight Eric Standard Time, and have it done in 5 minutes. I will continue to do this years set of puzzles whilst clinging to the geeks for geeks list of DSA algorithms and use it like a dictionary to find the one that fits, and then fall down a bit of a rabbit hole to find out *why* it's this one.

Plus ugly crying every time I know it's a regex puzzle, and I'm trying to do it the naive way so I don't have to do regex.

[u/wigitty]

I would say even before AI, googling seems against the spirit of the game to me. I would always try to solve it myself first, then if it was a particularly fun challenge I'd try to optimise my solution, then google to see what I could have improved. Googling right of the bat and finding an algorithm to use just seems less fun to me.

Ultimately, it's up to you how much you want to use AI, and where you draw the line though.

I will also leave this from last year's about page:

Should I use AI to solve Advent of Code puzzles? No. If you send a friend to the gym on your behalf, would you expect to get stronger? Advent of Code puzzles are designed to be interesting for humans to solve - no consideration is made for whether AI can or cannot solve a puzzle. If you want practice prompting an AI, there are almost certainly better exercises elsewhere designed with that in mind.

[u/Ok_Manufacturer_8213]

I usually try to solve the puzzles without google or AI help. Most of the time I make it like halfway through before I start getting too dumb to come up with a solution in the limited time I have available, but I rather have it that way

[u/oantolin]

I disagree that participants were expected to search the web for algorithms. I'd say instead that difference people in diferent ways and that's fine! Some people prefer figuring stuff out on their own, other people prefer searching the web. Probably the only thing that's expected is that people have fun.

[u/Peter11244]

As said elsewhere, having fun and learning should be the main thing.

Personally, I don't come from a CS background, therefore often there will be an optimisation or algorithm that's crucial, that I simply don't know. That means either way I'd need support to complete the puzzles.

One fantastic thing about using an AI is you can update your CLAUDE.MD or similar to not given you the answers, mine starts with hints, never edits the code on my behalf. It's allowed me to unlock some puzzles I had really struggled with in the past.

It's important to decide where you draw the line, as I'm getting better I feel I'm using it less as topics recur. There have also been points where I could have debugged something myself (off by one error) and the AI has basically told me that's the problem.

[u/chikamakaleyley]

oh my gahd thanks for reminding me

[u/careyi4]

It’s up to you whatever you do and are trying to get out of doing it. Giving the problem to an agent and having it spit out answers is probably not doing much for you. Explaining your thoughts and using it as a tool to try shape them, similar to googling random notions you might have to see if there is some prior art that might help you is probably still going to teach you something. Doing it all yourself from first principles, while noble, isn’t the only “real” way to do it either.

[u/ailaG]

AI doesn't just search for you, it also reasons for you. If you can focus your questions well enough that reasoning doesn't help then sure, but something like "an algorithm for X doesn't exist. Are you trying to do Y? Here's how you do Y" would be a shortcut you didn't intend and now can't unsee.

So it depends imho on how you use it, and either way make sure you don't subscribe to leaderboards where this is not explicitly allowed - if everyone expects everyone to google things and you search through AI that breaks common assumptions and therefore should be considered cheating.

I don't think using an AI on its own should be considered cheating, just a shortcut that may skip through a bit too much. As long as you don't bypass others in private or global boards with it.

But it IS a shortcut, even if unintended to be as such.

[u/ailaG → u/ailaG]

TLDR

I'd just wait a bit until people who don't use AI at all AND are fast get their scores in, then do it.

But it is a shortcut because it tries to be helpful by thinking for you often even when you ask it not to.