5 ms·

I think the lede is being buried. This is a great and fast InstructGPT. This is absolutely going to be used in spell checks, codemods, and code editors. Instan

I think the lede is being buried. This is a great and fast InstructGPT. This is absolutely going to be used in spell checks, codemods, and code editors. Instant edits feature can surgically perform text edits fast without all the extra fluff or unsolicited enhancements. I copied shadertoys, asked it to rename all variables to be more descriptive and pasted the result to see it still working. I'm impressed.

KingMob 1y ago
Spell check? Isn't that a well-solved problem at this point?
- dleeftink 1y ago
  Solved how? Language is always evolving
  - never_inline 1y ago
    Google Docs spellcheck has been really good for few years even before LLMs
    - macleginn 1y ago
      Not for German, surprisingly.
      - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
        LLMs aren't very good in non-English anyway, one thing it does is translate the in- and output to and from English because it has more available information in English. (disclaimer: single data point, a lot of assumptions in the above)
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 1y ago
  How does grammarly exist then? Must be some secret sauce in there.
- efitz 1y ago
  No. Spell check frequently still gets things wrong if the word is spelled correctly and the sentence is grammatically correct but the wrong word was used.
  - wenc 1y ago
    Can you give me an example? Spell check only checks if a word is in dictionary. It doesn’t check grammar or context.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - thinkingemote 1y ago
      "Bob went to Venice to pick up the doge." Where doge is both the name of a title (like duke) but it is misspelt "dog". The use of "Venice" where doge's are could increase a the likelihood of a smarter spell check keeping doge and not correcting to dog. Looking at a wider context might see that Bob is talking about a pupper. A simpler example would be "spell cheque"
      - macleginn 1y ago
        A spelling error, using one dictionary definition, is "an error in the conventionally accepted form of spelling a word" --- mistaking one word for another does not fall under this definition. It is true that we now expect spell checkers to do grammatical checking as well, but a pure spell checker can indeed rely on a wordlist for English (this wouldn't work in languages with more developed morphology and/or frequent compounding).
        kmacdough 1y ago
        Ok, but this is a technicality. Spell-checkers have slowly evolved into grammar checkers and what people really want is error correction. Whether people call it a spell checker a minor language issue (and the kind of things humans do all the time). When teaching for your dictionary, ask: "is it obvious what they mean if I'm not being pedantic?"
- fragmede 1y ago
  Its knot.
- stef25 1y ago
  It might sound unbelievable but if you write in multiple languages and mix languages in the same message or sentence, often spell check doesn't work properly. Which is only normal. I regularly send messages in 4 different languages (living in a bilingual city + frequent use of English and lots of Spanish friends). Sometimes even using 3 languages in one sentence. Whatsapp kind of improved it now in that you can "activate" two languages at the same time. Apart from that I'm not sure there's much else that can be done. It's not even that much of an edge case. Brussels is the one of the most international cities in the world, street names exist in 2 languages, a lot of slang and expressions get borrowed from other languages.

KingMob 1y ago

Spell check? Isn't that a well-solved problem at this point?

dleeftink 1y ago
Solved how? Language is always evolving
- never_inline 1y ago
  Google Docs spellcheck has been really good for few years even before LLMs
  - macleginn 1y ago
    Not for German, surprisingly.
    - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
      LLMs aren't very good in non-English anyway, one thing it does is translate the in- and output to and from English because it has more available information in English. (disclaimer: single data point, a lot of assumptions in the above)
8n4vidtmkvmk 1y ago
How does grammarly exist then? Must be some secret sauce in there.
efitz 1y ago
No. Spell check frequently still gets things wrong if the word is spelled correctly and the sentence is grammatically correct but the wrong word was used.
- wenc 1y ago
  Can you give me an example? Spell check only checks if a word is in dictionary. It doesn’t check grammar or context.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - thinkingemote 1y ago
    "Bob went to Venice to pick up the doge." Where doge is both the name of a title (like duke) but it is misspelt "dog". The use of "Venice" where doge's are could increase a the likelihood of a smarter spell check keeping doge and not correcting to dog. Looking at a wider context might see that Bob is talking about a pupper. A simpler example would be "spell cheque"
    - macleginn 1y ago
      A spelling error, using one dictionary definition, is "an error in the conventionally accepted form of spelling a word" --- mistaking one word for another does not fall under this definition. It is true that we now expect spell checkers to do grammatical checking as well, but a pure spell checker can indeed rely on a wordlist for English (this wouldn't work in languages with more developed morphology and/or frequent compounding).
      - kmacdough 1y ago
        Ok, but this is a technicality. Spell-checkers have slowly evolved into grammar checkers and what people really want is error correction. Whether people call it a spell checker a minor language issue (and the kind of things humans do all the time). When teaching for your dictionary, ask: "is it obvious what they mean if I'm not being pedantic?"
fragmede 1y ago
Its knot.
stef25 1y ago
It might sound unbelievable but if you write in multiple languages and mix languages in the same message or sentence, often spell check doesn't work properly. Which is only normal. I regularly send messages in 4 different languages (living in a bilingual city + frequent use of English and lots of Spanish friends). Sometimes even using 3 languages in one sentence. Whatsapp kind of improved it now in that you can "activate" two languages at the same time. Apart from that I'm not sure there's much else that can be done. It's not even that much of an edge case. Brussels is the one of the most international cities in the world, street names exist in 2 languages, a lot of slang and expressions get borrowed from other languages.