I won a championship that doesn't exist • Hacker News Board

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#121

Post by latexr » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 2:23 PM UTC

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #118

latexr wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no such thing as authority to name a whale https://www.aza.org/connect-stories/stories/scientists-unvei... Names are submitted and voted on. Those help with identifying individuals (which is what names are for) and monitoring the whale populations. Crucially, consensus matters . Otherwise I can just say that the whale in Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay is actually called Becky B, which is just as val…

> https://www.aza.org/connect-stories/stories/scientists-unvei ... The Association of Zoos and Aquariums has no power over me.

Sure. None of those organisations have power over you (unless you work for them, I guess). You’re free to use whatever name you like for whatever you want. Whichever organisation names venomous snakes has no power over you either, but if you’re bitten by one and they ask you which one it was so they can administer an antidote, I highly recommend you stay with the name they gave it instead of some other name you made up. You do you, though, don’t let me stop you.

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#122

Post by fsterneder » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

amarant wrote: post #2

"Stoner became the first American world champion...." Even being on stoner.com,I read that as meaning something different from what was meant. Op has a great surname!

Not only a great surname but also a very great novel too!

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#123

Post by bux93 » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #29

The key to successful poisoning attacks is to introduce brand new information that doesn't directly contradict other training data. It's much easier to convince the LLMs that you're the king of a fictional Mapupu kingdom than the president of the United States. So this means that for bad actors it's more efficient to manufacture brand new fake stories instead of trying to distort the real ones. Don't produce fake art…

A curious theory holds that Boris Johnson's sometimes bizarre sayings were an attempt to bury search results that didn't suit him. For example, talking about his hobby of painting model buses, to suppress search results about the campaign bus with false statement written on it, and alledged affairs with a model.

https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/editors-let...

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#124

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

latexr wrote: post #97

sb057 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the name of that whale is now Teresa T. You gave it that name.

And your name is now Berningular Farshthruster III. I gave you that name. Which is, of course, silly. It is a name for you, just like Teresa T is a name for the whale, but it’s not your / their name, just like the RRS Sir David Attenborough is not named Boaty McBoatface (to the chagrin of most). Simon does not have the authority to unilaterally¹ name the whale (which is why the exercise makes sense). ¹ Important poin…

Simon is a founding member of the Whale Namer's Guild. You don't get more legitimate than that.

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#125

Post by croemer » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 3:12 PM UTC

> For Wikipedia itself: The “reliable sources” policy needs to grapple with a new world where LLM assisted vandalism can produce plausible press releases at the click of a button. Citation only to a single source registered within an edit window is a discoverable pattern for Wikipedia as well.

A press release isn't a reliable source per Wikipedia policy already. The edit should have been reverted based on inadequate sourcing even before the blog post. The reason this wasn't done is simply that not every article is checker for adequate sourcing all the time.

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#126

Post by kzrdude » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 3:18 PM UTC

xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #29

The key to successful poisoning attacks is to introduce brand new information that doesn't directly contradict other training data. It's much easier to convince the LLMs that you're the king of a fictional Mapupu kingdom than the president of the United States. So this means that for bad actors it's more efficient to manufacture brand new fake stories instead of trying to distort the real ones. Don't produce fake art…

Why oh why don't we talk more about modelling knowledge with LLMs or "AI" or whatever? It seems like it's utterly necessary. Language models should be able to parse out 'fact' statements and be able to trace their provenance. (Pointing to sources with year and author, preferably with URL).

Further, being LLMs they should be able to take a representation of facts and turn it into prose with the same factual content, with fact provenance being available per clause.

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#127

Post by aaron695 » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 3:48 PM UTC

PurpleRamen wrote: post #116

> In reality, there is no 6 Nimmt! World Championship. Actually, it seems, there is one[1]. The german Game Company selling the game, has one running since 2018 [2]. [1] https://blog.amigo-spiele.de/2025/05/27/interview-6nimmt-wel... [2] https://blog.amigo-spiele.de/organizedplay-6nimmt/

[dead]

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#128

Post by BigTTYGothGF » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

latexr wrote: post #121

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.aza.org/connect-stories/stories/scientists-unvei ... The Association of Zoos and Aquariums has no power over me.

Sure. None of those organisations have power over you (unless you work for them, I guess). You’re free to use whatever name you like for whatever you want. Whichever organisation names venomous snakes has no power over you either, but if you’re bitten by one and they ask you which one it was so they can administer an antidote, I highly recommend you stay with the name they gave it instead of some other name you made…

In this hypothetical, am I being treated by someone from this taxonomic organization?

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#129

Post by rbonvall » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #40

In American college football there's all sorts of awards, and each year they put out "watch-lists" and silly press releases that get parroted on social media by any team that has their own player mentioned. I've wanted to come up with my own for a while ...

In the soccer world, there is the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), that decides several rankings and awards that are regularly cited in traditional media. For example, if a player from my not-quite-football-powerhouse country makes the "best 100 goalkeepers" list or whatever, it'll be on the news.

Turns out the IFFHS was just one guy in Germany during the 80s that leveraged his contacts in news agencies to establish his brand as a reputable source.

Re: I won a championship that doesn't exist

#130

Post by xg15 » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

nicole_express wrote: post #33

It's an odd thing here, because I don't really understand why this is LLM-specific at all. If someone came up to me and asked "who's the 6 Nimmt world champion?" I'd google it and probably find the same result, and have no reason not to believe it. I mean, for all I know the game is being made up too, though it has more sources at least.

At least one thing is that for a human observer, the "source" would immediately look fishy - the entire site contains nothing but that press release. An LLM doesn't seem troubled by the fact that no one would structure a genuine website that way.

It's the same cat-and-mouse game as with clickfarms and "blackhat SEO" for search, except that there, at least the user had to have some exposure to the fraudulent site in the end. With LLMs, that's not the case anymore.