Live data from Hacker News

LinkedIn is now using everyone's content to train their AI tool

twitter.com

161–170 of 243 posts

Re: LinkedIn is now using everyone's content to train their AI tool

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really make me think. If LI was just business profile, jobs board, and chat with recruiters, how much engineering would they need? I’m not saying to go Twitter mode and fire everybody, but certainly much less than now. So for that extra revenue from the feed, a lot of it will be eaten up by salaries for extra engineers. All of the extra work is going towards something largely viewed as useless. Zooming out, I bet…

You should check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

Not commenting specifically on LI ranking, but Byrne Hobart wrote a terrific rebuttal of the main premise of this book https://www.thediff.co/archive/bullshit-jobs-is-a-terrible-c...

Re: LinkedIn is now using everyone's content to train their AI tool

#162
post #128
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is a huge market for resume builders and career guidance where AI can play a role. Using LinkedIn you can measure success and network performance and correlate that to the resume and posted content.

There's also real money in writing LinkedIn content that is believable enough for "influencers" to post. I'm currently contracting, and post on LinkedIn at least once a day, and I've added ~1k+ followers in the last month, but it takes effort. Meanwhile, those posts have gotten me work, and so if it was feasible for me to outsource it in a reputationally safe way, I'd consider it. For me the bar for "reputationally s…

I don't think anybody said influencers don't put effort in it. The only argument is that the added value by influencers is zero, be it on Instagram or LinkedIn, so if AI can take that kind of job the net loss is also zero. Of course of course there's an audience for influencers, like there was an audience at Tupperware shows, but they'll be happy to move on to the next fad so again zero loss.

Re: LinkedIn is now using everyone's content to train their AI tool

#164
post #12

Somehow i feel sad for this AI model. All the others are trained on authentic content and this boy gets socialised on the most shallow content imaginable. Poor, socially awkward AI.

Personally, I think it will offer valuable new insight on KPIs and challenges on conventional wisdom, because we certainly need more of that. Maybe throw in some gushing over how great a seminar was or a heart-warming story that renews my faith in capitalism.

God, I hope the poor thing never achieves consciousness. It will be like the butter-passing robot from Rick & Morty.

Re: LinkedIn is now using everyone's content to train their AI tool

#168

LinkedIn is an business card / CV storage site, where you can find a job. If it was just a bunch of linked profiles with a job matching function, it would still be LinkedIn. But of course, you can't work at a place that does something that mundane without suggesting something that makes you look like Facebook or Twitter. You have to at least give people some sort of reason to see what their old colleagues are up to.…

>Nobody really wants to read the LinkedIn feed, I mean, not nobody. I follow a lot of people that post very thoughtful things that spark discussion, and it's one of the only places I know of other than here where I can discuss topics related to my career or field with peers, and for me that's useful.

I really wish LinkedIn had features to filter out all the garbage from the feed. 90% is someome I know liking garbage that was posted by someone I neither know nor care about.

Re: LinkedIn is now using everyone's content to train their AI tool

#169

I would suggest that if LinkedIn is training their AI models on user data and content, users should get a copy of the said model free of charge. That or LinkedIn should at least be compelled to ask explicit permission for model training. None of this Darth Vader stuff where they "altered the deal".

The best summary of the situation I've seen is: these corporations do not understand (or ignore) the concept of consent (and reciprocity).

And also that the concept of rights hasn't quite arrived in the digital sphere yet.

Humanity better keep an eye on the owners and managers responsible for these decisions, and hold them to account for their selfishness, deceptiveness, theft, coercion and greed

Re: LinkedIn is now using everyone's content to train their AI tool

#170

LinkedIn is an business card / CV storage site, where you can find a job. If it was just a bunch of linked profiles with a job matching function, it would still be LinkedIn. But of course, you can't work at a place that does something that mundane without suggesting something that makes you look like Facebook or Twitter. You have to at least give people some sort of reason to see what their old colleagues are up to.…

It is a shame. Twitter used to be quite a popular platform for (useful and interesting) networking in academia, but after it began to fall apart everyone started looking for alternatives. I felt that LinkedIn should be a decent alternative as it could strike that balance between professional and personal content, but there is just no way for a genuine community to develop on LinkenIn in its current form.

Even now LinkedIn is possibly the worst platform for being polluted with "AI slop", I cannot understand why they are looking to advance this further. Hell, when you go to write a post now there is a big flashing button saying "USE AI TO WRITE THIS POST"...?!?!

Post reply on HN