Live data from Hacker News

ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge

castlebridge.ie

91–100 of 301 posts

Re: ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge

#91

If you think of the knowledge base of the internet as a living thing, ChatGPT is a like a virus that now threatens its life. This is the same process SEO spam caused for search - it hampers the nature by which things function and the river needs to reroute (pagerank then usage metadata) to replace the lost signal. ChatGPT is more of an existential threat because it will propagate to infect other knowledge bases. Luke…

>And worse, then ChatGPT will digest its own excrement, worsening its own results further I wonder if we'll get a "dead sea effect" with AI, I've seen some stuff saying they've basically run out of high quality training data and now the training pool will get poisoned by AI generated shit. Basically garbage in, garbage out and these large language models might not be able to improve

Well, we still haven't really tapped video, which is arguably a much higher source of data on lots of things (especially on how things act in the physical world). And curation will likely help a lot.

And it's not like you can assume an indiscriminate crawl of the net is all human generated currently, anyway, let alone accurate. There's always cleaning involved.

Re: ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge

#92

ChatGPT is the bell announcing the death of anonymity on the web. Anonymous content will be generated content, real discussion will shift to gated communities with either paywalls or proofs of identity.

That's how it is now, it'll just be more so. You might trust somebody here, but do you trust your average Amazon reviews?

Re: ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge

#93

If you think of the knowledge base of the internet as a living thing, ChatGPT is a like a virus that now threatens its life. This is the same process SEO spam caused for search - it hampers the nature by which things function and the river needs to reroute (pagerank then usage metadata) to replace the lost signal. ChatGPT is more of an existential threat because it will propagate to infect other knowledge bases. Luke…

agree with you

Re: ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge

#94

If you think of the knowledge base of the internet as a living thing, ChatGPT is a like a virus that now threatens its life. This is the same process SEO spam caused for search - it hampers the nature by which things function and the river needs to reroute (pagerank then usage metadata) to replace the lost signal. ChatGPT is more of an existential threat because it will propagate to infect other knowledge bases. Luke…

[dead]

Re: ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge

#97
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on this? If it is full of garbage a couple examples should be very easy to find. I completely agree that Wikipedia can have errors, but in topics that I am educated in it seems pretty decent and I can't remember the last time I came across any (comp sci for example). The most recent example I can think of is about is an article on vulture bees, and a citation about what their honey tastes like, wh…

> Could you elaborate on this? If it is full of garbage a couple examples should be very easy to find. I could give examples but I won't, because that would link my HN and Wikipedia accounts. > So "garbage puffed up beyond all belief" and "full of terrible and fake citations that lead to nowhere" sounds a bit hyperbolic, tbh. People unironically describe it as the "sum of all human knowledge," so it's definitely puff…

You could use a throwaway account, if you really have those mindblowing examples to share.

So far all of the claims of Wikipedia as a pile of shit never had a real base to me. And political topics are controversial by its nature. There are authorative sources saying Marxism(Capitalism, or whatever) is good and Marxism(Capitalism) is bad, so what is the right side, Wikipedia should present? It struggles to cover the middle ground of scientific consensus, saying those said this and they said that. Which is why scientific articles about biology or physics are way better of course, but sure, in its current state, Wikipedia is good for a overview of a topic, but to dive in, you should read the quoted sources.

Usually the first thing when I encounter something new, is indeed to check Wikipedia. And I am glad it exists. I know I cannot believe it fully, but I still trust it way more, than some random site that might be better, but how should I know at first glance?

To really study, I read the scientific books and papers about a topic and Wikipedia is a good start for that.

Re: ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge

#98
post #23

> AI can experience the same rabbit-hole effect as your idiot cousin who has watched too many of the algorithmically suggested videos on Youtube and now believes that aliens conspired with a time travelling Elvis to kill Hitler using a bullet made of Yeti teeth. And they only went online looking for TellyTubbies videos. LOL Thank you, I needed a good laugh!

Even funnier: ~all humans suffer from the phenomenon, and are similarly unaware of their own personal ignorance. People view reality through a relative lens, the view is more pleasant than an absolute lens.

Re: ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> All signs point to this strengthening the value of curation and authenticated sources. > This is what they said about Wikipedia viz. Britannica... And they were right. If "they" were wrong about anything, it was the assumption that the masses would prioritize quality over cost, but it turns out that cheap wins every time. When it comes to information, it's like most people's taste buds don't work, so they'll pick…

Were they right, though? I am pretty sure I've seen research that compared the scope and accuracy of both and wikipedia was miles ahead.

In most areas you're correct, but the political slant/bias of Wikipedia is fairly blatant and is getting worse.

See for example: https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/41946110

Post reply on HN