Blog: AI – “With great power….” (More Posts)
“With Great power, comes great responsibility.” 
Using AI to write code is breathtakingly exciting for me. And addictive.
I’ve just asked ChatGPT (v3.5) to create a List Maker application (similar to one I’ve already written with some JavaScript of my own) but with some improvements I’ve never been able to do myself.
This involved 2 things. First, to persist the data with localStorage, since I’m not using a MySQL Database. And to handle the numbering when a user deletes a task, so that when task 4 of, for example, 6) is deleted the corresponding numbers get updated rather than leaving the numbered list “broken” as it were.
It did this for me in 3 very badly worded prompts by me in about 5 minutes. The speed of returned prompts has increased very much in the last few weeks. It is so very helpful.
Contrary to what is often thought about me, I can’t actually program. I mean mentally can’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t sit and write code and understand things. I know that’s a contradiction, so let me try and explain.
Programming isn’t about memorising code. It’s about being able to think on your feet, being able to read documentation, and with practice, applying knowledge to fix a technical problem.
I am much better at reading and understanding what’s written for me than writing new programming on the fly. And again I must stress, that doesn’t mean I don’t know *any* programming. I’ve been doing this now for over 12 years. And a lot longer than that before any kind of academic training.
When I talk about thinking on your feet, What I mean is when I start to write code, sooner or later I reach a certain point where I reach a metaphorical solid brick wall that it is impossible for me to get around. My learning difficulties make this sort of thing even harder for me. is all sorts of things happen that kind of block the learning neural pathways from making the connections it needs to memorise things.
But when I’m reading code, things make much more sense.
That is why AI in addition to (not in place of) traditional Google search has been a godsend for me and with it, I started to find ways to broaden the things I can achieve.
But all that said, at the same time it needs certain guardrails… It’s best to see AI, in all aspects of our lives as something we can learn from and to help us in our tasks rather than letting it get ahead of us.