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Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news

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Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news

#1

Post by aquaVitae »

In today's world, catchy headlines and articles often distract readers from the facts and relevant information. By utilizing OpenAI's language models, Boring Report processes sensationalist news articles, transforms them into the content you see, and helps readers focus on the essential details. We recently updated our iOS app experience, so any and all feedback would be appreciated.

App Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/boring-report-news-by-ai/id644...

Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news
boringreport.org

Re: Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news

#2

Post by oatmeal1 »

I feel like the kind of person who would use Boring Report is also the kind of person who's brain is already discounting sensationalist titles and doesn't really need an app to do it for them. That being said, I'm all for trying things to make the news more measured and nuanced.

Re: Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news

#4

Post by CSSer »

What I find most ironic about this is that rather than bringing users closer to the source of information it potentially pushes them farther away by adding an additional step to verification. I imagine you've considered this? How easy does your app make it to access the source article and author information, for example?

Re: Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news

#6

Post by tehjoker »

You can't just reword things and get a better result. If there actually is an alien invasion and the earth is actually doomed, that's actually the correct headline.

Media literacy is about way more than about the wording of headlines. It's also about understanding why a headline was selected, who benefits from a story, whether the story is internally logically consistent, and why were the people quoted selected, context of the story that you wouldn't know just from reading it, etc.

I say this as someone that wrote a browser plugin to do something similar in like 2011 by screening words that indicated the headline was pointless.

Re: Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news

#7

Post by malcolmgreaves »

> In today's world, catchy headlines and articles often distract readers from the actual facts and relevant information.

A reasonable premise! But easier said than done. I wonder how this app counteracts the hallucination and lying behavior of LLMs.* Would be pretty bad to trade off easier-to-decipher human bias and sensationalism for distorted truths and lies from an obfuscated sequence of dot products!

* I assume they are using LLMs because they state:

> By utilizing the power of advanced AI language models capable of generating human-like text,

Re: Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news

#8

Post by pdabbadabba »

tehjoker wrote: post #6

You can't just reword things and get a better result. If there actually is an alien invasion and the earth is actually doomed, that's actually the correct headline. Media literacy is about way more than about the wording of headlines. It's also about understanding why a headline was selected, who benefits from a story, whether the story is internally logically consistent, and why were the people quoted selected, cont…

I agree. Although one side effect of the Boring Report's approach that I quite like is that it also seems to make the headlines more informative.

Re: Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news

#9

Post by beardyw »

CSSer wrote: post #4

What I find most ironic about this is that rather than bringing users closer to the source of information it potentially pushes them farther away by adding an additional step to verification. I imagine you've considered this? How easy does your app make it to access the source article and author information, for example?

Looks like the original URL is at the top of every story.
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