9 KiB
My first ChatGPT exchange
The first few questions for ChatGPT
I finally opened an account to beta-test ChatGPT. I must say, I am quite impressed. I asked it a few questions that I could have asked during an interview. To my surprise, the answer given was, while wrong, believable enough to kind of sneak the answer as right up to some imprecision. Like if you squint enough, it could pass, but if you pay attention it is clearly false.
So yes, mainly ChatGPT in this interaction was quite good at being convincing. This is the same kind of impression you have from looking at AI generated images. At first sight everything seems fine, but if you start looking to the details, many things are off.
So here is the full interaction, I'll let the attentive reader find the technical problems:
{{{logo}}} Can you write a clojure function that will reverse any string provided to it.
ChatGPT: Sure, here's a possible implementation of a function that reverses a string in Clojure:
(defn reverse-string [s] (apply str (reverse (seq s))))
This function takes a strings as input, converts it to a sequence of characters using the
seq
function, reverses this sequence using the reverse function, and then converts the resulting sequence back to a string using theapply
andstr
functions.Here's an example of how you can use this function:
user=> (reverse-string "hello world") "dirow olleh"
Note that this function only works for strings that contain characters in the Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP), since the
seq
function only works on strings that contain characters in this range. If you need to reverse strings that contain characters outside of the BMP, you can use thestring-seq
function instead ofseq
to convert the string to a sequence of characters.
{{{logo}}} How would this function react if instead of string you provide an integer?
ChatGPT: If you provide an integer as input to the
reverse-string
function instead of a string, the function will fail with aClassCastException
because theseq
function only works on strings, and you cannot convert an integer to a string in a straightforward way in Clojure. Theseq
function expects its input to be a string or a collection, such as a vector or a list, and when you try to pass an integer to it, it will try to convert the integer to a string by calling thestr
function on it. However, sincestr
only works on strings and collections, and not on numbers, this will result in aClassCastException
.Here's an example of what will happen if you try to pass an integer to the reverse-string function:
user=> (reverse-string 12345) ClassCastException clojure.lang. Numbers cannot be cast to clojure.lang. IFn clojure.core/seq (core.clj:136)
To avoid this error, you can either make sure that the input to the
reverse-string
function is always a string, or you can modify the function to handle other types of input, such as integers, by first converting them to strings using thestr
function. For example, you could write thereverse-string
function like this to handle both strings and integers as input:(defn reverse-string [s] (let [s (if (string? s) s (str s))] (apply str (reverse (seq s)))))
With this version of the function, if you pass an integer as input, the function will convert it to a string using the
str
function before calling theseq
function on it, so theseq
function will be able to work with the input. Here's an example of how you can use this modified version of thereverse-string
function:user-> (reverse-string "hello world") "dlrow olleh" user=> (reverse-string 12345) "54321"
Note that the modified version of the function will also work for other types of input that can be converted to strings using the
str
function, such as floats and booleans.
{{{logo}}} How would you use the concept of the Maybe monad in Haskell in this clojure function?
ChatGPT: The Maybe monad in Haskell is a way to represent computations that may or may not have & p a result, and it provides a way to compose these computations in a safe and predictable way. In Clojure, the Maybe monad is usually implemented as a
Option
type, which has two possible values:Some
andNone
In the context of the
reverse-string
function, you could use theOption
type to represent the possibility that the input to the function might not be a string, in which case the function would returnNone
instead of a reversed string. Here's an example of how you could use theOption
type to modify thereverse-string
function to handle the case where the input is not a string:(defn reverse-string [s] (if (string? s) (Some (apply str (reverse (seq s)))) None))
With this version of the
reverse-string
function, if the input is a string, the function will return aSome
value containing the reversed string, and if the input is not a string, the function will return aNone
value. This allows the caller of the function to handle the case where the input is not a string in a predictable and safe way.Here's an example of how you can use this modified version of the
reverse-string
function:user=> (reverse-string "hello world") Some "dlrow olleh" user=> (reverse-string 12345) None
Note that the Option type in Clojure does not provide the same syntactic sugar for composing computations as the Maybe monad in Haskell, so you cannot use the
>>=
operator to chain calls to thereverse-string
function in the same way you can in Haskell. However, you can still use theOption
type to represent computations that may or may not have a result, and you can use thematch
orcase
forms to pattern match on theOption
values and handle the different cases in a predictable and safe way.
{{{logo}}} How would you implement Option in clojure?
ChatGPT: In Clojure, the
Option
type is typically implemented as a sealed protocol, which is a type of polymorphic type that defines a set of concrete types that implement the protocol.The
Option
protocol typically defines two concrete types:Some
, which represents a computation that has a result, andNone
, which represents a computation that does not have a result.Here's an example of how you could define the
Option
protocol and theSome
andNone
types in Clojure:(defprotocol Option (map [o f]) (flat-map [o f])) (deftype Some [x] Option (map [o f] (Some (f x))) (flat-map [o f] (f x))) (deftype None []) Option (map [o f] None) (flat-map [o f] None))
The
Option
protocol defines two methods:map
andflat-map
Themap
method takes a functionf
as input and applies it to the value contained in theSome
type,f
it exists, or returns aNone
valuef
theOption
type isNone
Theflat-map
method is similar tomap
but it allows the functionf
to return anOption
value, which is then flattened into the outerOption
value.The
Some
type implements theOption
protocol by providing concrete implementationsf
the map andflat-map
methods. The 'map method applies the functionf
to the valuex
contained in theSome
type, and returns a newSome
value containing the resultf
the function. Theflat-map
method applies the functionf
to the valuex
contained in the Some type, and then flattens the resultingOption
value into the outerOption
value.The
None
type also implements the Option protocol by providing concrete implementations of themap
andflat-map
methods. Themap
andflat-map
methods simply return aNone
value in this case, since there is no value to apply the function to.Here's an example of how you can use the
Option
protocol and theSome
andNone
types:user=> (def some-value (Some 12345)) #' user/some-value user=> (map some-value inc) Some 12346 user=> (flat-map some-value (fn [x] (Some (* × 2)))) Some 24690 user=> (map some-value (comp (partial * 2) inc)) Some 24690 user=> (def none-value None) #'user/none-value user=> (map none-value inc) None user=> (flat-map none-value (fn [x] (Some (* × 2)))) None user=> (map none-value (comp (partial * 2) inc)) None
In this example, the
some-value
variable is defined as aSome
value containing the integer 12345, and thenone-value
variable is defined as aNone
value. Themap
andflat-map
functions are then used to apply different functions to the values contained in theOption
types, and the…