Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google restricts Gemini chatbot election answers

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–59 of 59 posts

Re: Google restricts Gemini chatbot election answers

#51

Post by jsnell »

worksonmine wrote: post #49
jsnell wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It cuts both ways. You also can't expect people to write long rebuttals to every inane conspiracy theory. That just allows people like the OP to commit what are effectively denial of service attacks on the community, by posting low effort ramblings with the expectation that they deserve a discussion, which the other people would need to put way more effort into than the OP would. Downvotes are for hiding this crap at…

Someones conspiracy theory is someone else's truth. And often they become everyone's truth after some time, see the lab leak theory for a recent example. This is the internet, you don't get to control what others say and still get to speak your own mind. I assume you don't need to back your claims up, am I right? Just dropping the magic words is enough. I hate that word with a passion, it's used as the one and only a…

See, this is funny, because it's actually you who is trying to control others, by demanding that they put in time and effort on engaging with low quality and low effort content rather than just downvote and move on.

Re: Google restricts Gemini chatbot election answers

#52

Post by foldr »

itsoktocry wrote: post #41
foldr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way for any person or organisation to address the entire voting population at once. So according to this guy, any time anyone encourages people to vote via any medium, they're engaging in election manipulation. This is exactly the sort of duff reasoning that finds non-existent conspiracies in every corner.

> This is exactly the sort of duff reasoning that finds non-existent conspiracies in every corner. Have you been living under a rock? The tech companies taking sides in politics is not a conspiracy theory.

Reminding people that there’s an election is not taking sides. It’s certainly not an instance of “vote manipulation”. I’m not commenting on the broader issue, just this specific claim, which is bonkers.

Re: Google restricts Gemini chatbot election answers

#53

Post by [deleted] »

itsoktocry wrote: post #39
foldr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of this is plainly ridiculous, e.g. the last sentence of the following: >On Election Day in 2018, the “Go Vote” reminder Google displayed on its home page gave one political party between 800,000 and 4.6 million more votes than it gave the other party. Those numbers might seem impossible, but I published my analysis in January 2019 ( https://is.gd/WCdslm ) (Epstein, 2019a), and it is quite conservative. Google’s…

> Some of this is plainly ridiculous Or, is it "plainly ridiculous" to think that Google started on their version of political correctness when they built Gemini, but not before? The Twitter Files revealed how much the FBI and CIA have their hands in social media. The biggest data source on the planet was untouched?

[deleted]

Re: Google restricts Gemini chatbot election answers

#54

Post by mc32 »

lupusreal wrote: post #50
mc32 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can see how ridiculous it is though. It’s like complaining that when you do a search for slave owners of antebellum USA it doesn’t show black slave owners and complaining that’s erasing history. Or, imagine if it only showed black slaveholders when you asked it to generate slaveholders of the south. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_slave_owner... .

Yes, Gemini's images were certainly absurd, no disputing that. So few black men fought for Germany that it probably doesn't warrant representation at all, at least certainly not at the rate Gemini was doing it. Still, it wasn't zero, and it makes me wonder if people in the future will write off historical oddities as AI fabrications.

As people have mentioned, we have to be able to determine or label whether data or information is synthetically produced or not. We can't have synthetically produced information input back into these systems to build upon bad information --we have dirty enough information produced by people that we don't need a bad positive feedback loop to make things even worse.

In other words these AI systems can’t be implicit or explicit primary sources in any way.

Re: Google restricts Gemini chatbot election answers

#55

Post by worksonmine »

jsnell wrote: post #51
worksonmine wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someones conspiracy theory is someone else's truth. And often they become everyone's truth after some time, see the lab leak theory for a recent example. This is the internet, you don't get to control what others say and still get to speak your own mind. I assume you don't need to back your claims up, am I right? Just dropping the magic words is enough. I hate that word with a passion, it's used as the one and only a…

See, this is funny, because it's actually you who is trying to control others, by demanding that they put in time and effort on engaging with low quality and low effort content rather than just downvote and move on.

"But what about you".

No, I don't. I'm arguing that downvoting is a lazy way to discuss. It's anonymous, drive-by and a completely useless way to speak your mind. I'm arguing that the option to downvote discourages discussion.

They don't have to engage at all if the quality was so low. What about the comment was low quality? How can it be improved? Are the claims incorrect? Or was someone just offended? All that information is lost with the downvote and there's no way to find out. If they know so much better why don't they use that knowledge and educate?

What is low quality is subjective, I don't think the comment was low quality, but the downvote brigade managed to hide it. It's a shame because this could've been an interesting thread. Ironic given the context don't you think?

Re: Google restricts Gemini chatbot election answers

#58

Post by karmasimida »

prepend wrote: post #57
karmasimida wrote: post #9

Can't blame them, I don't think Google could benefit in any situation.

Users benefit from accurate information. If AI only answers what benefits the owner, that really reduces the value of the product.

Anyone asking AI for election information is not seeking for accuracy, it is seeking to solicit errors, for a laugh or creating outrage.

I am not going to change my opinion on this matter.

If you need AI for election guidance, check your priority first.

Re: Google restricts Gemini chatbot election answers

#59

Post by prepend »

karmasimida wrote: post #58
prepend wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users benefit from accurate information. If AI only answers what benefits the owner, that really reduces the value of the product.

Anyone asking AI for election information is not seeking for accuracy, it is seeking to solicit errors, for a laugh or creating outrage. I am not going to change my opinion on this matter. If you need AI for election guidance, check your priority first.

I ask it for election info as I just use it as a better google (eg, “what was the election breakdown by county and party for the 2020 presidential election in Nebraska” [or whatever]).

I certainly am not looking to solicit errors, laugh, or create outrage.

Post reply on HN