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GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT (a.k.a. Research Goblin) is good at search

simonwillison.net

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Re: GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT (a.k.a. Research Goblin) is good at search

#41

Post by simonw »

BoredPositron wrote: post #29
simonw wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It seems incredibly concentrated on OpenAI to the detriment of anything else." My most recent posts: - https://simonwillison.net/2025/Sep/7/ai-mode/ - Google/Gemini - https://simonwillison.net/2025/Sep/6/research-goblin/ - OpenAI/GPT-5 - https://simonwillison.net/2025/Sep/6/kimi-k2-instruct-0905/ - Moonshot/Kimi/Groq - https://simonwillison.net/2025/Sep/6/anthropic-settlement/ - Anthropic (legal settlement) - https:…

[flagged]

I'm one person with a blog, and I have other things to do.

Sometimes I feel that there's pressure for me to be a full blown newspaper covering everything that happens in a multi-billion dollar industry.

Re: GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT (a.k.a. Research Goblin) is good at search

#42

Post by [deleted] »

simonw wrote: post #38
BoredPositron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The thing about models getting incrementally better is that occasionally they cross a milestone where something that didn't work before starts being useful. Those are the kinds of things I look out for and try to write about.

[deleted]

Re: GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT (a.k.a. Research Goblin) is good at search

#44

Post by BoredPositron »

simonw wrote: post #41
BoredPositron wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm one person with a blog, and I have other things to do. Sometimes I feel that there's pressure for me to be a full blown newspaper covering everything that happens in a multi-billion dollar industry.

[flagged]

Re: GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT (a.k.a. Research Goblin) is good at search

#45

Post by haswell »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #36
BoredPositron wrote: post #3

[flagged]

HN is very cult-of-personality based. People see SimonW they upvote without reading, while at the same time a much better article could be posted on the same topic and get zero traction. Not trying to single Simon out here, I generally find his posts good, just a statement of the herdthink and cognitive laziness of this community (and humans in general, to be fair).

I don’t think this framing quite captures what’s going on.

The AI space is full of BS and grift, which makes reputation and the resulting trust built on that reputation important. I think the popularity of certain authors has as much to do with trust as anything else.

If I see one of Simon’s posts, I know there’s a good chance it’s more signal than noise, and I know how to contextualize what he’s saying based on his past work. This is far more difficult with a random “better” article from someone I don’t know.

People tend to post what they follow, and I don’t think it’s lazy to follow the known voices in the field who have proven not to be grifting hype people.

I do think this has some potential negatives, i.e. sure, there might be “much better” content that doesn’t get highlighted. But if the person writing that better content keeps doing so consistently, chances are they’ll eventually find their audience, and maybe it’ll make its way here.

Re: GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT (a.k.a. Research Goblin) is good at search

#46

Post by redeyedtreefrog »

BoredPositron wrote: post #23
yorwba wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post is currently number 144 in newest and not listed in the second-chance pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool so I think this is its first chance.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=research+goblin it's like the third time it gets posted and only got traction because I asked why it's popping up in the new q over and over again.

The original author submitted it, then when it didn't get traction it looks like two fans of his blog both submitted it around 12 hours later. Whether for internet upvote points or because they personally thought the article particularly great, I don't know.

Personally I generally enjoy the blog and the writing, but not so much this post. It has a very clickbaity title for some results which aren't particularly impressive.

Re: GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT (a.k.a. Research Goblin) is good at search

#47

Post by simonw »

BoredPositron wrote: post #44
simonw wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one person with a blog, and I have other things to do. Sometimes I feel that there's pressure for me to be a full blown newspaper covering everything that happens in a multi-billion dollar industry.

[flagged]

I said the opposite of that: I haven't written about it yet because I didn't have anything interesting to say, and I try to write things that add value.

I wrote about my approach to that here: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/22/link-blog/#trying-to-a...

Re: GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT (a.k.a. Research Goblin) is good at search

#48

Post by jryle70 »

BoredPositron wrote: post #3

[flagged]

First of all, why is it bad? That's my pet peeves of reading HN. People assume their opinion as fact. I found this blog piece interesting. Probably other people as well, that's why it's on the front page.

Second of all, Simon's content are often informative, more or less sticking to the facts, not flame bait. I never upvote or flag any content from anyone.

Re: GPT-5 Thinking in ChatGPT (a.k.a. Research Goblin) is good at search

#49

Post by politelemon »

haswell wrote: post #45
CuriouslyC wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is very cult-of-personality based. People see SimonW they upvote without reading, while at the same time a much better article could be posted on the same topic and get zero traction. Not trying to single Simon out here, I generally find his posts good, just a statement of the herdthink and cognitive laziness of this community (and humans in general, to be fair).

I don’t think this framing quite captures what’s going on. The AI space is full of BS and grift, which makes reputation and the resulting trust built on that reputation important. I think the popularity of certain authors has as much to do with trust as anything else. If I see one of Simon’s posts, I know there’s a good chance it’s more signal than noise, and I know how to contextualize what he’s saying based on his…

You're not negating anything they've said, but given some insight into why the case might be. However the cult of personality and brand still exists and as a result heavily distorts what could appear here.

Saying that someone ought to write better consistently for them to "make its way here" leans completely into the cult of personality.

I think following people would be better served though personal RSS feeds, and letting content rise based on its merit ought to be an HN goal. How that can be achieved, I don't know. What I am saying is that the potential negatives are far far understated than they ought to be.

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