Getting an AI to write software for you? Want to write software, but haven't got the first clue where to start? Enter "vibe coding", a term that has swept the internet to describe the use of AI tools, including large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, to generate computer code even if you can't program. "Vibe coding basically refers to using generative AI not just to assist with coding, but to generate the entire code for an app," says Noah Giansiracusa at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Users ask, or prompt, LLM-based models such as ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot to produce the code for an app or service, and the AI system does all the work.

Your email inbox is full of spam. Your letterbox is full of junk mail. Now, your web browser has its own affliction: slop. "Slop" is what you get when you shove artificial intelligence-generated material up on the web for anyone to view. Unlike a chatbot, the slop isn't interactive, and is rarely intended to actually answer readers' questions or serve their needs.

ChatGPT doesn't come with an instruction manual. Only a quarter of Americans who have heard of the AI chatbot say they have used it, Pew Research Center reported this week. "The hardest lesson" for new AI chatbot users to learn, says Ethan Mollick, a Wharton professor and chatbot enthusiast, "is that they're really difficult to use." Or at least, to use well. The Washington Post talked with Mollick and other experts about how to get the most out of AI chatbots -- from OpenAI's ChatGPT to Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing -- and how to avoid common pitfalls.

A lot of what Conor Grennan does as a dean of students at NYU's Stern School of Business could be done at least in part by bots. Brainstorming and planning are prime examples of tasks that can be easily handled by generative AI tools like ChatGPT. But instead of feeling like he could be replaced by AI, Grennan has become an evangelist of this technology and its potential to make work better. He likens the opportunity to work with AI technology right now to finding material wealth. "It feels like the Gold Rush, like there's a bunch of people getting to California and seeing little flakes of gold in the river," he told Vox.

Mea culpa: I was wrong. The artificial intelligence (AI) singularity is, in fact, here. Whether we like it or not, AI isn't something that will possibly, maybe impact software development in the distant future. No, not every developer is taking advantage of large language models (LLMs) to build or test code. But for those who are, AI is dramatically changing the way they build software.

Mea culpa: I was wrong. The artificial intelligence (AI) singularity is, in fact, here. Whether we like it or not, AI isn't something that will possibly, maybe impact software development in the distant future. No, not every developer is taking advantage of large language models (LLMs) to build or test code. But for those who are, AI is dramatically changing the way they build software.

On Thursday, a few Twitter users discovered how to hijack an automated tweet bot, dedicated to remote jobs, running on the GPT-3 language model by OpenAI. Using a newly discovered technique called a "prompt injection attack," they redirected the bot to repeat embarrassing and ridiculous phrases. The bot is run by Remoteli.io, It would normally respond to tweets directed to it with generic statements about the positives of remote work. After the exploit went viral and hundreds of people tried the exploit for themselves, the bot shut down late yesterday. This recent hack came just four days after data researcher Riley Goodside discovered the ability to prompt GPT-3 with "malicious inputs" that order the model to ignore its previous directions and do something else instead.