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Dead Internet Theory

kudmitry.com

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Re: Dead Internet Theory

#251

Post by XorNot »

Duanemclemore wrote: post #204
fsckboy wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that sounds like one of the worst heuristics I've ever heard, worse than "em-dash=ai" (em-dash equals ai to the illiterate class, who don't know what they are talking about on any subject and who also don't use em-dashes, but literate people do use em-dashes and also know what they are talking about. this is called the Dunning-Em-Dash Effect, where "dunning" refers to the payback of intellectual deficit whereas the i…

The em-dash=LLM thing is so crazy. For many years Microsoft Word has AUTOCORRECTED the typing of a single hyphen to the proper syntax for the context -- whether a hyphen, en-dash, or em-dash. I would wager good money that the proliferation of em-dashes we see in LLM-generated text is due to the fact that there are so many correctly used em-dashes in publicly-available text, as auto-corrected by Word...

Which would matter but the entry box in no major browser do was this.

The HN text area does not insert em-dashes for you and never has. On my phone keyboard it's a very lot deliberate action to add one (symbol mode, long press hyphen, slide my finger over to em-dash).

The entire point is it's contextual - emdashes where no accomodations make them likely.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#252

Post by nitwit005 »

_zagj wrote: post #59

Reddit has a small number of what I hesitatingly might call "practical" subreddits, where people can go to get tech support, medical advice, or similar fare. To what extent are the questions and requests being posted to these subreddits also the product of bot activity? For example, there are a number of medical subreddits, where verified (supposedly) professionals effectively volunteer a bit of their free time to an…

I'm not aware of anyone bothering to create bots that can pass the checking particular subreddits do. It'd be fairly involved to do so.

For licensed professions, they have registries where you can look people up and confirm their status. The bot might need to carry out a somewhat involved fraud if they're checking.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#253

Post by neilv »

quantummagic wrote: post #201
seiferteric wrote: post #116

My parents were tricked the other day by a fake youtube video of "racist cop" doing something bad and getting outraged by it. I watch part of the video and even though it felt off I couldn't immediately tell for sure if it was fake or not. Nevertheless I googled the names and details and found nothing but repostings of the video. Then I looked at the youtube channel info and there it said it uses AI for "some" of the…

As they say, the demand for racism far outstrips the supply. It's hard to spend all day outraged if you rely on reality to supply enough fodder.

I hadn't heard that saying.

Many people seek being outraged. Many people seek to have awareness of truth. Many people seek getting help for problems. These are not mutually exclusive.

Just because someone fakes an incident of racism doesn't mean racism isn't still commonplace.

In various forms, with various levels of harm, and with various levels of evidence available.

(Example of low evidence: a paper trail isn't left when a black person doesn't get a job for "culture fit" gut feel reasons.)

Also, faked evidence can be done for a variety of reasons, including by someone who intends for the faking to be discovered, with the goal of discrediting the position that the fake initially seemed to support.

(Famous alleged example, in second paragraph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#... )

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#254

Post by jofzar »

> The notorious “you are absolutely right”, which no living human ever used before, at least not that I know of > The other notorious “let me know if you want to [do that thing] or [explore this other thing]” at the end of the sentence

There's a new one, "wired" I have "wired" this into X or " "wires" into y. Cortex does this and I have noticed it more and more recently.

It super sticks out because who the hell ever said that X part of the program wires into y?

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#255

Post by theteapot »

Refreeze5224 wrote: post #248
quantummagic wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they say, the demand for racism far outstrips the supply. It's hard to spend all day outraged if you rely on reality to supply enough fodder.

[flagged]

I'm noticing more of these race baiting comments on YC too lately. AI?

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#256

Post by ggm »

jofzar wrote: post #254

> The notorious “you are absolutely right”, which no living human ever used before, at least not that I know of > The other notorious “let me know if you want to [do that thing] or [explore this other thing]” at the end of the sentence There's a new one, "wired" I have "wired" this into X or " "wires" into y. Cortex does this and I have noticed it more and more recently. It super sticks out because who the hell ever…

You are absolutely right is something some people in some variants of English say all the time.

It may grate but to me, it grates less than "correct" which is a major sign of arrogant "I decide what is right or wrong" and when I hear it, outside of a context where somebody is the arbiter or teacher, I switch off.

But you're absolutely wrong about youre absolutely right.

It's a bit hokey, but it's not a machine made signifier.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#257

Post by dboreham »

schrodinger wrote: post #205
fuzzer371 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one uses em dashes

I do—all the time. Why not? I also use en dashes when referring to number ranges, e.g., 1–9

I didn't know these fancy dashes existed until I read Knuth's first book on typesetting. So probably 1984. Since then I've used them whenever appropriate.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#258

Post by protocolture »

I say "Absolutely correct" or variations thereof all the time.

I feel things are just as likely to get to the point where real people are commonly declared AI, as they are to actually encounter the dead internet.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#259

Post by dboreham »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #208
crimony wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Word automatically converts dashes to em dashes as soon as you hit space at the end of the next word after the dash.

That's the only way I know how to get an em dash. That's how I create them. I sometimes have to re-write something to force the "dash space space" sequence in order for Word to create it, and then I copy and paste the em dash into the thing I'm working on.

You can Google search "em-dash" then copy/paste from the resulting page.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#260

Post by kgeist »

amarant wrote: post #221

> The notorious “you are absolutely right”, which no living human ever used before, at least not that I know of If no human ever used that phrase, I wonder where the ai's learned it from? Have they invented new mannerisms? That seems to imply they're far more capable than I thought they were

>If no human ever used that phrase, I wonder where the ai's learned it from?

Reinforced with RLHF? People like it when they're told they're right.

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