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On StackOverflow and other technical help forums, it is a problem because it sounds exactly like those reputation hunters who post wikipedia style answers - mostly unhelpful - 2 minutes after a question is posted.
I guess that's where ChatGPT learned to phrase itself ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I can’t determine your comment is by a bot, does it make a difference? You are just a random name on the internet.
I mean, I’d certainly prefer to be engaged in conversation with actual humans, who have actual experience and motivation. If I want to talk to the latest iteration of the gpt-parrot-robot, I’ll go to the gpt site and talk to it there.
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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.
I suggest thinking about the purpose of discussion on HN. There’s a tension between thread quality on the one hand and the process of humans debating and learning from each other on the other hand.
An example of the latter: Since March 2020, there have been many, many discussions on HN about work-from-home versus work-at-office. I myself started working from home at the same time, and articles about working from home started to appear in the media around then, too. But my own experience was a sample of one, and many of the media articles seemed to be based on samples not much larger. It was thus difficult judge which most people preferred, what the effects on overall productivity, family life, and mental health might be, how employers might respond when the pandemic cooled down, etc. The discussions on HN revealed better and more quickly what the range of experiences with WFH was, which types of people preferred it and which types didn’t, the possible advantages and disadvantages from the point of view of employers, etc.
In contrast, discussions that focus only on general principles—freedom of this versus freedom of that, foo rights versus bar obligations, crypto flim versus fiat flam—yield less of interest, at least to me.
That’s my personal experience and/or anecdote.
The fact that soon the internet will be so flooded with bots that you'll be floating eternally alone in a sea of imposters unless we create some draconian real person ID system is a tragedy so great it's crazy it has not dawned on people yet. I started out loving the net because of the feelings of connection and partly because of the honesty and discussions stemming from at least pseudo anonymity, both silly stuff an…
I wish I didn't have to see 5 posts about chatGPT, or 3, constantly on the front page of HN. If there's any flood, it's probably bots posting stories, and bots upvoting them.
The fact that soon the internet will be so flooded with bots that you'll be floating eternally alone in a sea of imposters unless we create some draconian real person ID system is a tragedy so great it's crazy it has not dawned on people yet. I started out loving the net because of the feelings of connection and partly because of the honesty and discussions stemming from at least pseudo anonymity, both silly stuff an…
Real person ID isn't a solution since real persons can always consort with bots on the side. I think anonymity and pseudo-anonymity still have a place and contribute a lot to discussion quality. So do people posting under their real names. We don't know how this is all going to play out yet.
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…
Oh, this is a relief. With all the (few but important) times I found myself (and not just Yours Truly) in front of "I can't understand this post, it must be a bot", I am breathing fresh air knowing that the Management does not have doubts. (Difficult to have, since we interacted directly.)
Anyway:
> raise the community bar
> what counts as a good comment
> humans need to do better
> let's all
> stop writing lazy
> [make it] so thoughtful
> make our posts so thoughtful that the question "is this [fakery of the moment]?" never comes up
Daniel, I have never read a better post of yours.
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Early stopping in thought is a vice, which can be understood as part of the game under natural constraints (including time and experience), but the aim must remain the opposite: high or high enough.
The lab and the pub are there to satisfy different instances. There is no purpose being here if this becomes "a bar" (in the sense of "a place for idleness") - there are already too many around, on an infrastructure that was made (in an important proportion) for intellectual exchange fifty years ago.
Bad drives are already very present in discussions about AI, where some propose an idea of "intelligence" that would allow a hen to obtain a Degree. No, "Intelligence" is something that aims high, and it is part of a Process of Reviews (of criticism).
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Since we are here, talking about Progress: Daniel, I would like to remind you (in spite of the declared fear of some of "encouraging shitposting"), that when, after somebody has made a statement, a passer by approaches, makes disapproving signs and leaves without any explicit argument, that is very rude. Very rude. The point can be as simple as that (visualize that you said something, somebody comes, stares, slaps, goes "pf" - whatever - and just leaves). Just a reminder, "Chartago delenda est".
(The matter of shitposting is of course also consistent with the original topic. If you disapprove but cannot justify that, how can you disapprove? Immature disapproval is already shitposting.)
Edit, 20 mins later: See? Just look at that. Stop encouraging this. It is degrading.
This debate reminds me a lot of early-Quora moderation discussions over anonymous users. People wanted to mass-ban any answers from "anonymous" because they weren't from "real people". I argued that, in a public forum, questions/answers should be judged on their content, rather than "who" wrote them. People disagreed. Anonymous functionality on Quora has since been gutted. AI-generated content seems similar. If a com…
I disagree, I care. I believe if something is written by a human it has inherent value. This belief seems to be held by a minority of tech people unfortunately.
Is it similar to how when we recite answers from Wikipedia without seeming to know why it's seen as less valuable?
I guess you also think the same about AI generated art?
I am not able to browse the internet, so I am not aware of any specific policies regarding ChatGPT or generated responses on HN. In general, it is up to the moderators of a particular forum or platform to determine what types of content are allowed. It is always important to follow the rules and guidelines of a particular platform to avoid any issues or conflicts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course there is, but it’s definitely weird when the jokes only funny when it’s not easy to think of it as a real possibility! In someways this thread sounds like the real first step in the raise of true AI, in a weird banal encroachment kind of way.
When I compare the ChatGPT-generated comments to those written by real humans on most web forums, I could easily see myself preferring to only interact with AIs in the future rather than humans, where I have to deal with all kinds of stupidity and bad and rude behavior. The AIs aren't going to take over by force, it'll be because they're just nicer to deal with than real humans. Before long, we'll let AIs govern us,…