How ChatGPT Inspired Developers to Add a New Feature to Their App

Sometimes artificial intelligence can make mistakes and suggest that apps have features that do not exist. This is exactly what happened to the team behind the Soundslice app.

Soundslice is an app that helps you scan and digitize sheet music. However ChatGPT kept telling users that Soundslice could turn ASCII guitar tabs into music even though this was not a real feature. ASCII tabs are a simple way to write out guitar notes using text. Confused by repeated requests for this non existent feature the developers checked their error logs. They discovered that ChatGPT was incorrectly telling people to use ASCII tabs with their app.

The developers had a choice. They could ignore the problem and let users get frustrated. They could put up warnings on their site saying that this feature did not exist. Or they could just take a few hours to build the feature since so many people seemed to want it. In the end they decided to add the new function so now Soundslice can handle ASCII tabs.

This story shows how powerful and sometimes unpredictable AI can be. On the positive side it pushed the app creators to add a feature that users found valuable. On the other hand if AI tools keep suggesting features that do not exist it can confuse and disappoint people. Developers may face more situations like this in the future as AI tools become more common.

Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/gaslight-driven-development-chatgpt-was-convinced-this-app-had-a-feature-it-didnt-so-the-devs-decided-to-add-it-in-anyway/