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Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

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Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#141

Post by _heimdall »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #118
wcfrobert wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What that comment is describing is already here. A colleague sent an email that was obviously AI-generated (bloated, repetitive, low signal-to-noise ratio). I guess he's quite new to the team and it's a sign of formality, but I really don't mind if you send me just the bullet-point notes... Why are we going through this encoding-decoding process? I think succinctness and low-noise writing will be treasured in the age…

> Why are we going through this encoding-decoding process? I think succinctness and low-noise writing will be treasured in the age of AI. I hope so, because I hope this will lead to making it OK to skip the manual encoding process. After all, AI isn't doing anything new here - it's automating the customary need for communication to be in wordy prose paying right respects to right people. Maybe people will finally see…

It's never been my read on people that wordy prose like this is done as a formality.

If a lawyer or am academic wrote it, it most often comes off as overly complex wording to prove a point of intellect or superiority.

For basically anyone else, when I see prose like that it most often reads like (a) they either don't understand the topic well or (b) they don't need to write it at all other than to stay busy and/or appear more valuable in a role.

Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#142

Post by _heimdall »

globular-toast wrote: post #136
vidarh wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two units of work have been carried out, so yes it raises GDP.

GDP isn't about units of work, it's about the final product. So using two units of work instead of one to produce the same thing shouldn't affect GDP. But perhaps you are implying GDP is not correctly calculated?

That depends on how you're calculating GDP. If you are summing up all expenditures or incomes, the paid work done by each AI would be counted. If you're counting production, meaning the value added, it probably wouldn't count since digging a hole only to fill it back in created no value.

Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#143

Post by vidarh »

globular-toast wrote: post #136
vidarh wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two units of work have been carried out, so yes it raises GDP.

GDP isn't about units of work, it's about the final product. So using two units of work instead of one to produce the same thing shouldn't affect GDP. But perhaps you are implying GDP is not correctly calculated?

GDP is about products or services. If someone is paid for digging a hole, then that a finished, delivered service. Filling it the same. If you dig and fill a hole without anyone paying you for either, sure it won't affect GDP, but if someone pays you, that the net result is no change does not alter the fact that you have been paid to dig a hole and to fill a hole.

The method used to calculate the investment can affect whether the income produced increase the GDP or whether only the consumption generated by that increased income is counted, but in a real-world scenario either alternative will increase the GDP.

> But perhaps you are implying GDP is not correctly calculated?

That GDP doesn't accurately reflect productive, useful effort for this reason has been a core part of the criticism of GDP since it was first formulated.

Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#144

Post by _heimdall »

throwup238 wrote: post #117
majormajor wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For things like reviews I usually get a lot more value from a quick manual scan than an AI overview of any given review. Summaries of many reviews could be useful but if there are, e.g., thousands of reviews, I find myself skeptical of how truly "thorough" or well-executed that AI summary is anyway. For "how do I write a bash script that will do X" the AI summary currently is way better than scanning a handful of Sta…

I think we’re still missing a breakthrough in synthetic data generation for code in order to LLMs to come into their own. Something can ingest the documentation of all the different ecosystems and generate fine tuning to improve the accuracy of recall.

LLMs may get there when real reasoning is figured out, I'm expecting that to require a totally different approach used in combination with LLMs as the language unit.

Do we really want that though? As soon as these systems can reason through software problems and code novel solutions, there is no need for humans to be involved.

Likely we couldn't be involved at all, those systems would come up with solutions we likely would have a hard time comprehending and it would be totally reasonable for the system to create its own programming language and coding conventions that work better for it when the constraint of human readability is removed.

Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#145

Post by vidarh »

_heimdall wrote: post #142
globular-toast wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP isn't about units of work, it's about the final product. So using two units of work instead of one to produce the same thing shouldn't affect GDP. But perhaps you are implying GDP is not correctly calculated?

That depends on how you're calculating GDP. If you are summing up all expenditures or incomes, the paid work done by each AI would be counted. If you're counting production, meaning the value added, it probably wouldn't count since digging a hole only to fill it back in created no value.

GDP calculates the market value delivered. In this case of the labour. If someone is paying for the labour, GDP will be affected by the value of that labour. If the net output in terms of a product at the end is zero, then that does not erase the labour.

The only case where digging and filling a hole does not increase GDP is if the labour is not paid for.

EDIT: Basically, the two methods you list are the income or expenditure ways of calculating GDP, but in both cases consumption by employers is a factor, and so the payment for the labour increases the GDP irrespective of whether they also increase the final output.

Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#146

Post by _heimdall »

plasticeagle wrote: post #124
josephg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll check it out. I’ve just been asking chatgpt for recipes lately and it’s doing a great job. The other night I made béchamel sauce for the first time (cooking for 6 dinner guests!). ChatGPT nailed it. I’m 2% sad for all the recipe websites it’s ripping content from. But then I remember what utter Adsense cancer they all are. “My mum made this recipe! You’ll never guess step 6!” While being plastered with 8 auto pl…

I mean, that's fair to some extent. But on the other hand you could have just purchased any cookbook that covers the basics, instead of taking all this web-scaped content without attribution or compensation. I mean, look, I totally get it and I'm certainly guilty of this too - but let's not pretend that we're not basically stealing other people's content here. Much of the time those people running those recipe websit…

There are interesting parallels between LLMs and downloading pirated movies/shows.

In the first case its a trillion dollar business based on scraping the entire internet and sharing out a lossy, compressed version of the content with no attribution or financial contributions to the original creator. In the second case its a shady, technically illegal practice of scraping DVDs or online video streams and sharing a lossy, compressed version without attribution or financial contributions to the creator.

Maybe Napster just needed VC backing to make it seem legit.

Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#147

Post by _heimdall »

vidarh wrote: post #145
_heimdall wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on how you're calculating GDP. If you are summing up all expenditures or incomes, the paid work done by each AI would be counted. If you're counting production, meaning the value added, it probably wouldn't count since digging a hole only to fill it back in created no value.

GDP calculates the market value delivered. In this case of the labour . If someone is paying for the labour, GDP will be affected by the value of that labour. If the net output in terms of a product at the end is zero, then that does not erase the labour. The only case where digging and filling a hole does not increase GDP is if the labour is not paid for. EDIT: Basically, the two methods you list are the income or e…

I'm not so sure calculating GDP by production would capture this. It should, mind you, as all GDP calculations should get the same answer, but a silly/stupid example of two LLMs digging and filling in a hole may not fit in a production calculation.

> the production approach estimates the total value of economic output and deducts the cost of intermediate goods that are consumed in the process (like those of materials and services)[1]

This is a very rough definition of it, but role with it. There is no economic value since the hole was dug only to be filled back in. There was a service paid for on each end of the project, but those are services that could fall into the category of intermediate goods consumed that is actually deducted. The transaction could actually have a negative GDP when using the production calculation approach.

[1] the production approach estimates the total value of economic output and deducts the cost of intermediate goods that are consumed in the process (like those of materials and services)

Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#148

Post by vidarh »

_heimdall wrote: post #147
vidarh wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP calculates the market value delivered. In this case of the labour . If someone is paying for the labour, GDP will be affected by the value of that labour. If the net output in terms of a product at the end is zero, then that does not erase the labour. The only case where digging and filling a hole does not increase GDP is if the labour is not paid for. EDIT: Basically, the two methods you list are the income or e…

I'm not so sure calculating GDP by production would capture this. It should, mind you, as all GDP calculations should get the same answer, but a silly/stupid example of two LLMs digging and filling in a hole may not fit in a production calculation. > the production approach estimates the total value of economic output and deducts the cost of intermediate goods that are consumed in the process (like those of materials…

In both income and expenditure-based GDP calculations income or consumption by households are part of the calculation (which means the calculations will not give the same result).

You can make an argument that if the hypothetical workers are salaried they're not technically paid for any given task, while I'd argue that there was an opportunity cost (they could have done other work than digging/filling it in), so there's some subjectivity to it.

My stance is that if it was done as part of paid work, they were paid to carry out the task as there's at least in aggregate if not per every one individual event an opportunity cost in having them do that work instead of something else, and so part of their consumption was paid for by the labour for those tasks, and hence they affect GDP.

That the output does not add value for the procurer of that labour does not nullify the expenditure on that labour. Whether you're calculating GDP on income or expenditure, those add to GDP either as income for the workers or an expenditure for the employer.

Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#149

Post by softwreoutthere »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #118
wcfrobert wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What that comment is describing is already here. A colleague sent an email that was obviously AI-generated (bloated, repetitive, low signal-to-noise ratio). I guess he's quite new to the team and it's a sign of formality, but I really don't mind if you send me just the bullet-point notes... Why are we going through this encoding-decoding process? I think succinctness and low-noise writing will be treasured in the age…

> Why are we going through this encoding-decoding process? I think succinctness and low-noise writing will be treasured in the age of AI. I hope so, because I hope this will lead to making it OK to skip the manual encoding process. After all, AI isn't doing anything new here - it's automating the customary need for communication to be in wordy prose paying right respects to right people. Maybe people will finally see…

Writing is an art, and some enjoy producing or consuming verbose prose. I hope AI doesn't change this.

Personally, I don't appreciate verbosity while reading blog or news articles.

However, I don't think its bullshit. If a author is sharing, they likely are doing so in a manner that they find enjoyable.

The way I see it, you don't need to read communications like this if you don't enjoy it. Much of what gets said repeats what has been said elsewhere.

Re: Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites

#150

Post by josephg »

_heimdall wrote: post #146
plasticeagle wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that's fair to some extent. But on the other hand you could have just purchased any cookbook that covers the basics, instead of taking all this web-scaped content without attribution or compensation. I mean, look, I totally get it and I'm certainly guilty of this too - but let's not pretend that we're not basically stealing other people's content here. Much of the time those people running those recipe websit…

There are interesting parallels between LLMs and downloading pirated movies/shows. In the first case its a trillion dollar business based on scraping the entire internet and sharing out a lossy, compressed version of the content with no attribution or financial contributions to the original creator. In the second case its a shady, technically illegal practice of scraping DVDs or online video streams and sharing a los…

> no attribution or financial contributions to the original creator

This is an interesting idea, but I don't think it makes much sense to apply that logic to classic kitchen recipes. Who, exactly, is the original creator here?

The common recipes I'm asking chatgpt about - crepes, homemade pasta or bechamel sauce - are hundreds of years old. We could extend your metaphor to say that the bechamel sauce recipe has been "pirated" by generations of cookbooks for hundreds of years. Chatgpt is just continuing the well established tradition of recipe piracy, in order to bring these amazing recipes to the next generation of chefs.

After all, allrecipes.com didn't invent bechamel sauce either. Do they make financial contributions to the original creator of the recipe? I think not.

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