Latest / The SME Stream / Paul Stenhouse: Can AI build an app?

Transcript

Paul Stenhouse: Can AI build an app? · The SME Stream

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Two to eleven on News Talks. He'd be Paul Stenhouse
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: our text. Bert has undertaken a bit of an experiment
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: this week. He wanted to see if AI could build
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: an app. He's put it to the test for us
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: scout to Paul.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Good morning Jack. I don't know if it was a
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: good idea, and it's a bit a frustrating experience, but
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I can say there is a working app that I
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: wrote zero lines of code for. That's kind of crazy.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is amazing. Okay, So tell us about the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: idea for the app or for your website, and then
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: explain to us how you managed to build it without
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: actually writing any code.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I had this thought. Every time there's an
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: election call, when each of his networks makes a call,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I thought, wouldn't it be good if we could track
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: that so that we could see which network thinks we're
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: going to have who as the president of the United States.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: The election, of course, is on Tuesday. And I took
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: to an application that is called Cursor, and Cursor is
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: like a development tool crossed with AI, so you can
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: actually ask it things and it will then create the
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: code for it, and you can commit that to your
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: You know dev environment your code just with the click
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: of a button. It's incredible. So you can say, give
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: me a pigraph that shows X and y. It uses
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: this is a variable, that is a variable. Push submit.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: It will give you back fully working code. And then
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: what he basically did is layered these on and on
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: and on and on. So you ask it to do
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: one thing, then you ask it to do another thing,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: then you ask it to connect those two things, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: then you ask it to do something else. Yeah, it
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: does get rather complicated. It is not without headaches, it
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: is not without frustrations. But there is a working app
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: app jecktame at all the calls dot app all the
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: calls dot apps to.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you've already fortunately sent me a little previous
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I gave you looking at it this week. No, it's
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: pretty amazing what you can do given you haven't had
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to do any code, although obviously I haven't been privy
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to the frustrations of all of the layering. But what
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: do you think this means for the future of coding,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Because for years now we've been saying, Oh, kids don't
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: need to worry about handwriting, kids don't even need to
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: worry about multiplication. All they need to know is how
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: to code, and they'll have a job for life.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, I think that's a bit that's changing, right,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: So I think you need to know technical concepts. People
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: still need to be technical. You still need to know
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: kind of what the tech is trying to do, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: what the concepts are, and what the individual services are
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: that make an application in a website run. What you
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: don't need to do, though, is actually know how to
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: do the actual code. The language part. This runs on typescript.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know any typescript. AI wrote it for me,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: so I think that's really important. And I think that
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: just understanding the concepts, understanding how to talk to it.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: One of the things I found this week Jack was
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I really had to work out what context it needed.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Words are really important with AI, right, You need to
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: make sure you're really explicit, and the takeaway.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Price down just really have to be. You have to
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: be spot on, Yeah.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Absolutely spot on. You know, using words like overlaid versus
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: above mean very different things, and they can send you
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: down a very bad path. Now overlaid and above it
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: kind of sound reasonably similar and have a pretty you know,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: when you have a bit of context, they mean something,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: but in coding terms they mean something very different, and
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: so that can lead you down some bad paths. But
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I will say the takeaway I have is that it
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: really is about the power of communication. Funnily enough, the
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: ability and the skill to communicate explicitly, be clear, be concise,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: and also doing some active listing, checking and clarifying what
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: the AI is telling you actually helps you create something.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, let's see it. That's very interesting. Hey, I've
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: got to ask you, since you are in the US,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: what is your pick for Wednesday this week?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Oh? You mean who I think it's going to be
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: and who I want it to be?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Answers, Well, who do you think? Yeah? So you you
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing here that you are not a Donald Trump fan.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: That would be true. Yes, so are we voting? I
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: vote over here?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Now you can vote, Yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: I can vote. Yeah. Yeah, so I'll be casting my
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: vote for Kamala Harris. But watching with anticipation. The problem
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: is is I think I'm just going back to that
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: last election where you know, where it was him versus Clinton,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: and just the polls were just so wrong, And I
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: guess they have no faith in the polls.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Ye, faith the election.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: But the polling, I guess, is what I'm nervous about.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: So we'll see the middle of the country's doing.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I think I think that's very wise. I think not
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump himself has always said he never puts any
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: faith in the polls. I just think, you know, because
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: all of the polsters correct on new information, right, so
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: over the last couple of elections that have undercounted Donald
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Trump support heading into the election, and they might do
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the same thing this time around. They might also over correct.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: We just don't know, and we won't know until the
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: results come through. Thank you so much, Paul, what a
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: fascinating experiment. I'm going to give you Paul's website again
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: so you can go and have a look or his
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: app once again. I hope that he's managed to build
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: in plenty of capacity for the millions of hits. Maybe
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: he's got a good advertising framework in there as well,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: so we can make sure that Paul is sitting pretty
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: it's all the calls dot app, so allthcalls dot app. Well,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: make sure that we put a link on our website
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: as well, so you can see what Paul was able
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: to build using only AI