Using chat bots like ChatGPT for software development is dangerous if you don't know what you are doing

Obligatory disclaimer: I use ChatGPT quite a bit for coding these days and I couldn't be happier with the results. I ain't a hater.

However, I can't help but notice how it will never give me high level, or even slightly out of the box advise. What's worse, if you are looking for horrible coding advise, ChatGPT is very happy to give it to you. This seems to me terribly dangerous for junior (and not so junior) developers. Thinking about it, in this regard ChatGPT is similar to that immensely popular and helpful 21 years old cousin that buys vodka and cigarettes for you and your teenage friends: Does exactly what you want without any regard to how advisable it is.

For example, I came up with this very plausible scenario where a Data Scientist is just out of Academia. They have been told by the CTO that using Shiny is a bad idea because the company has plenty of web developers. This DS only knows R, and the following tragedy starts to unfold:

I didn't give up the chance for ChatGPT to redeem itself, so I assumed that the website was implemented and it now a colossal pile of R spaghetti that no one in the company but our protagonist wants to touch. ChatGPT to the rescue again:

Now lets assume that all developers and the CTO quit in disgust when the R website explodes in popularity. Our brave DS is now CTO, Team Lead, and only developer. While they try hire they turn to their only friend left, ChatGPT, in order to handle the mess:

There is more

To be fair, at the end even ChatGPT figured out that this maybe was getting a bit out of hand. Final part of the answer.

There was This reddit comment triggered me to write this - made me realize I wasn't the only one noticing this)

ChatGPT Will turn coding tickets from 2 hours of research, 2 hours of coding, 2 hours of bug fixing into 5 minutes of research, 5 minutes of coding, and 10 hours of bug fixing.