Does AI mean Good-Bye

[spl]

I throw this out for understanding 'differential' .....

Outside WB I have subscribed to SQL Central. Recently there was an article where the author questioned if AI could make SQL boards obsolete => basically, why ask a question about code when something like copilot could give you an answer w/out the back-n-forth of a web board?

MS copilot comes with Win11 or if you use Edge it is an extension. I have discovered that it is over 95% accurate for code questions about PS, and about 60% for WB, with other languages like Python, VBA, PHP, Javascript over 80%.

I have mostly worked with db tables, transformations etc...  but realize almost everything could be handled using Python or C#/Powershell as scripts.

The point is, I assume AI for coding [at this point] is primarily based on accumulating internet data and parsing it based on specific issues into semi-understandable code. With that in mind what happens when a person asks a question about code and the reply is "AI it!!"

[td]

My experience with Copilot is much different. I tend to type in MSFT product and standards-related technical questions. I get uninsightful pablum back for the most part. However, I usually get the questions answered fairly quickly with a plain old Google search. I don't normally use Google Search as my search engine, but it does a better job than many on technical stuff. One would think MSFT could do a better job of training its own LLM on its products...

[spl]

My experience with Copilot is much different.

Yes, but my question was more general. Understand that individuals may have opinions or facts based on personal experience. So assume the general:  I ask copilot "powershell code to show how to close ado connections, recordsets, commands" and I will get back something like

Code Select Expand

$connection.Dispose()
$recordset.Dispose()
$command.Dispose()

and if I ask the same for winbatch or vba I will still get dispose() although that is not the correct method for those platforms. However, a lot of the other code copilot sends associated with question is relevant.

To bring this discussion down... copilot seems a quick way to assist with writing snippets and saves the person writing them time from asking someone else for the correct solution. But, if they don't ask and nobody replies with the solution, how does copilot learn?

We just cut cable. Got a $20 antenna from Best Buy and got 32 channels. Move it around and can get up to 41, although 3-5 is all we would watch.  However, the more we watch the 3-5 channels the better the reception is: so, is the antenna learning from our behavior??? Of course, if you try to make sense of this, you will get a headache, something easily experienced with copilot.

[td]

My experience with Copilot is much different.

Yes, but my question was more general. Understand that individuals may have opinions or facts based on personal experience. So assume the general:  I ask copilot "powershell code to show how to close ado connections, recordsets, commands" and I will get back something like

It is not clear to me which general you are assuming. And it is not surprising that an MSFT LLM would be able to produce PowerShell code. It is their product and they have an interest in promoting it. I use AI models that are trained to assist in very specific areas and find them very useful. I play with LLMs because they are cheap entertainment. LLMs are not yet well suited to the learn-in-depth-how-it-works approach to problem-solving.

Down the road where AI technology will take us? I have no idea. After all, "it is difficult to make predictions particularly when they are about the future."

I do know that my scientist offspring find ChatGPT useful for building spreadsheets and converting code from one programming language to another. I think they consider such tasks annoying inconveniences and are happy to find any shortcut.