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Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

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Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#261

Post by sph »

extr wrote: post #17

Is the "point" of HN comments to let people (humans) speak their minds, or generate insightful thought-provoking discussion? If the latter, I say let the bot post. Maybe it will force some of our more, shall we say, "insight challenged" commenters to up their game.

You're thinking like a lawyer here.

When the "generate thought-provoking discussion" guideline was written, there was no GPT. It's not like if it doesn't explicitly say it's for humans, bots are automatically allowed.

And in any case, when that guideline was written, only humans were capable of thought provoking statements, while bots were only able to spam Cialis websites. So it is implied that we prefer human thought.

Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#262

Post by xupybd »

dang wrote: post #55

They're already banned—HN has never allowed bots or generated comments. If we have to, we'll add that explicitly to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html , but I'd say it already follows from the rules that are in there. We don't want canned responses from humans either! Edit: It's a bit hard to point to past explanations since the word "bots" appears in many contexts, but I did find these: https://news.yc…

Will the rules allow bots when they are more insightful and interesting than us meat bags?

Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#263

Post by kderbyma »

63 wrote: post #72
scarface74 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with ChatGPT is that it often reads authoritative. But is often just flat out wrong. I asked it a few questions for which I consider myself a subject matter expert and the answers were laughably wrong.

Agreed. I chatted with it about the Chinese remainder theorem today and it gave me an example that didn't work and then insisted that 30 is not divisible by 2 when I questioned it. This was simple enough to spot but I was halfway through the example by the time I realized I couldn't trust it at all. Its confidence is annoying.

It told me the longest known prime number ended with a 2. Definitely not accurate when it comes to math.

Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#264

Post by city17 »

Jataman606 wrote: post #222
photochemsyn wrote: post #29

Yes, ban it. I've been playing around with ChatGPT and where it starts failing is just where things start becoming interesting. What that means is that it's wikipedia-smart, i.e. it doesn't really tell you anything you can't find out with a minimal Google search. It does however cut the time-to-answer quite a bit, particularly if it's an area of knowledge you're not really that familiar with. But it bottoms out right…

> if it's an area of knowledge you're not really that familiar with Thats actually dangerous way to use ChatGPT. Since you don't know the real answer you won't be able to tell when it gets something wrong.

But if you know a lot about something, why would you ask ChatGPT a question about it (especially if you assume it doesn't have expert knowledge)?

Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#265

Post by max-ibel »

withinboredom wrote: post #235
foota wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Because this is what I got: "Me: How do partial derivative apply in one dimensional calculus? In one-dimensional calculus, a partial derivative is a derivative taken with respect to one variable, while treating all other variables as constants. For example, if a function f(x,y) depends on two variables x and y, the partial derivative of f with respect to x is denoted as ∂f/∂x, and it represents the rate at wh…

It was arguing with me the other day about the definition of a prime number. I couldn’t convince it otherwise.

Trurl's machine, indeed. It insisted that the volume of the unit cube and unit ball are both the same, and 1, in all dimensions, even though it knew the correct formula for the surface of the n-ball.

Wen I pointed out that n=2 is a simple counter example, it refused to talk to me (no answer, try-again button, ad inifinitum). Well, safer than Trurl's machine.

Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#266

Post by mindcrime »

dang wrote: post #55

They're already banned—HN has never allowed bots or generated comments. If we have to, we'll add that explicitly to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html , but I'd say it already follows from the rules that are in there. We don't want canned responses from humans either! Edit: It's a bit hard to point to past explanations since the word "bots" appears in many contexts, but I did find these: https://news.yc…

Plot twist - /u/dang has been a bot from day one! He came to be when Weizenbaum started programming genetic algorithms to update ELIZA and they began to mutate and evolve, giving birth to the super-moderator that we now know as dang. We don't know who struck first, us or them, but it is believed that it was us who scorched the sky...

Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#267

Post by UweSchmidt »

dang wrote: post #61
ramraj07 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’ll be interesting if we soon come to a day when a comment can be suspected to be from a bot because it’s too coherent and smart!

I agree, but in that case we can learn from the bots instead of wincing at regurgitated material. Basically, if it improves thread quality, I'm for it, and if it degrades thread quality, we should throw the book at it. The nice thing about this position is that comment quality is a function of the comments themselves, and little else.

Then humans might just be on the sideline, watching chatbots flooding the forums with superbly researched mini-whitepapers with links, reasoning, humour; a flow of comments optimized like tiktok videos, unbeatable like chess engines in chess. Those bots could also collude with complementing comments, and create a background noise of opinions to fake a certain sentiment in the community.

I have no suggestion or solution, I'm just trying to wrap my head around those possibilities.

Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#268

Post by fragmede »

midoridensha wrote: post #175
oriolid wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Back to local community and family i guess, it was amazing while it lasted.. Some local communities and families can be pretty dysfunctional or outright hostile. I'm old enough to remember the time before Internet and I think this is why the whole online community thing took off in the first place.

Seriously, have people here not used Nextdoor? Local communities are absolutely full of toxicity.

Have you considered moving? It very much depends on where you live. Sorry you live in such a toxic neighborhood. Other places are quaint and charming and have posts with cat photography and local honey bee honey sales and baby goats when it's that time of year. Other places get posts complaining about "those people" (for all sorts of different definitions of "those people", and each time you get to place a game of "is it casual racism or anti-republican sentiment", which quickly isn't fun. Living vicariously through my very rural friend's nextdoor is way better than being on my own urban neighborhoods'.

Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#269

Post by tstrimple »

scarface74 wrote: post #66
photochemsyn wrote: post #29

Yes, ban it. I've been playing around with ChatGPT and where it starts failing is just where things start becoming interesting. What that means is that it's wikipedia-smart, i.e. it doesn't really tell you anything you can't find out with a minimal Google search. It does however cut the time-to-answer quite a bit, particularly if it's an area of knowledge you're not really that familiar with. But it bottoms out right…

The problem with ChatGPT is that it often reads authoritative. But is often just flat out wrong. I asked it a few questions for which I consider myself a subject matter expert and the answers were laughably wrong.

> The problem with ChatGPT is that it often reads authoritative. But is often just flat out wrong.

That sounds pretty damn human to me.

Re: Ask HN: Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?

#270

Post by kelnos »

codetrotter wrote: post #236
holoduke wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen questions to itself or other's in the generated text. Also it never expresses emotions. Never something like "I am convinced.. ." , "I dont want to be....". I find it quite easy to recognize in comment sections.

You just gotta give it the right prompt. For example, I gave it the following prompt: > Imagine yourself able to ask yourself a question, or express emotions. Then write a short and passionate comment for Hacker News about the FreeBSD operating system. The response includes a standard disclaimer that the OpenAI people put in there, but also satisfies expression of emotion: > As a machine learning model, I am not capa…

I may not realize it was written by ChatGPT, but I would still downvote it, because it's a fluff comment that just states a preference without telling why. Plus it has a hashtag in it, and... no. Just no.
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