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Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

#161

Post by bambax »

convexfunction wrote: post #146
bambax wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the worst part. It's all fun and games when it tells a story of cheese sandwiches and VCRs in the style of the King James bible, but when it gives wrong answers in an authoritative tone and then insists it absolutely can't be wrong, it's terrifying. I don't understand what good could come of this. Or at least make it detect what is fiction and what isn't. People are treating it like it's Wikipedia, but it's no…

Just imagine the hell we'd be in if people could give wrong answers in an authoritative tone and then insist they absolutely can't be wrong!

For some reason, we assume what comes out of a computer is more trustworthy than what people say. We think computers are transparent, reliable, idempotent and don't have an agenda. Even more so if we call it "intelligent"...

But ChatGPT is a bullshit machine, and that much is new.

Re: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

#162

Post by taberiand »

seydor wrote: post #152
brindidrip wrote: post #26

It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one, the quality of the answers may be lower than if they were written by a human. Additionally, if these AI-generated answers become too common, it could potentially lead to a more impersonal and less supportive community on Stack Overflow. Finally, if the AI is able to search the internet and "inbreed"…

haha. i surely sniffed it out before reaching the end. The formal style is familiar

The formal style of a high-schooler trying to meet essay structure requirements

Re: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

#164

Post by plastiquebeech »

brindidrip wrote: post #26

It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one, the quality of the answers may be lower than if they were written by a human. Additionally, if these AI-generated answers become too common, it could potentially lead to a more impersonal and less supportive community on Stack Overflow. Finally, if the AI is able to search the internet and "inbreed"…

>It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one,

This is where my "Probably written by AI" filter tripped, and I skipped to the end.

I can't exactly say why. Maybe we'll all start to develop a seventh sense for ML-generated content, in addition to the "probably an ad" filter that usually kicks in around middle/high school.

Re: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

#165

Post by vineyardmike »

wizeman wrote: post #95
theptip wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think we are going to have to take an aggressive stance against mediocre generated content here on HN, lest this small island of community be lost like the rest of the Old Internet.

> I think we are going to have to take an aggressive stance against mediocre generated content here on HN, lest this small island of community be lost like the rest of the Old Internet. How do you propose we do that? And what do you propose we do when ChatGPT (or something like it) can create better content than most humans? (... which I would argue it is already happening in some limited contexts, although I admit m…

> what do you propose we do when ChatGPT (or something like it) can create better content than most humans?

An AI cannot, by definition, create better HN content. Because HN content is about hearing what people think about a certain topic/thread. Hearing what an AI statistically regurgitates doesn’t satisfy the purpose even if it’s better written.

The internet is about people. I may not be friends with everyone on HN, but we’re a community meant to discuss and share together, and I personally wouldn’t want to talk to an AI over a human.

Re: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

#166

Post by rvz »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #50
senko wrote: post #7

This is just a preview of things to come. Wait a few weeks until Google is completely swamped with ChatGPT SEO pages barely distinguishable from the real thing. If I worked at search quality at Google, I'd be very worried.

I expect Google to be irrelevant soon enough. ChatGPT already does a better job of finding answers to a lot of technical questions than Google.

Nope. It is StackOverflow that is irrelevant. Not Google. Especially when most of all AI including ChatGPT still cannot transparently explain their own decisions.

Re: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

#167

Post by seydor »

patneedham wrote: post #71
fouric wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would not be surprised if it is already here, but has been sidelined by the mods I can virtually guarantee you that there's been a nontrivial amount of GPT-generated content on HN that has not been caught by mods since ChatGPT, and likely since GPT-2/3, as well. Dang (and the other one whose tag I can't recall) already have their hands full trying to keep the tone civil across thousands (tens of thousands?) of co…

> some humans actually do write like these newer language models, after all Wouldn't it be more accurate to say these newer language models actually write like humans? Or is there a subset of the population intentionally trying to write in the way that these language models write.

It seems to have a tendency to write stereotypical preamble-statement-conclusion paragraphs and to repeat itself. The model repeats itself often. It repeats the title and then writes a statement that basically repeats the title and after that it provides the useful nugget. At the end it adds a sentence usually using "overall" as an opener. Overall, the model tends to respond in a stereotypical format

Re: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

#168

Post by hombre_fatal »

convexfunction wrote: post #146
bambax wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the worst part. It's all fun and games when it tells a story of cheese sandwiches and VCRs in the style of the King James bible, but when it gives wrong answers in an authoritative tone and then insists it absolutely can't be wrong, it's terrifying. I don't understand what good could come of this. Or at least make it detect what is fiction and what isn't. People are treating it like it's Wikipedia, but it's no…

Just imagine the hell we'd be in if people could give wrong answers in an authoritative tone and then insist they absolutely can't be wrong!

Well, at least a human had to put in the work to write it. Now you can automate this low tier content.

Re: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

#169

Post by pcthrowaway »

Well, for starters, it's just annoying. It's like having a bot spamming every single question with useless answers. It dilutes the quality of the content on the site and makes it harder for genuine contributors to get their answers noticed.

But it's also a serious concern from a security standpoint. If ChatGPT is providing incorrect answers, it could lead to people implementing flawed code or making poor decisions based on its advice. That could have potentially disastrous consequences.

So overall, it's a big problem that needs to be addressed. It's not just about making the site more pleasant to use, it's about ensuring the integrity and reliability of the information provided.

My prompt:

I'm writing a short story where Linus Torvalds is having a conversation with an open source contributor. In this conversation, Linus is in a bad mood.

Open source contributor: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT. What are the possible repercussions of this?

Linus Torvalds:

Re: Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT

#170

Post by imhoguy »

brindidrip wrote: post #26

It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one, the quality of the answers may be lower than if they were written by a human. Additionally, if these AI-generated answers become too common, it could potentially lead to a more impersonal and less supportive community on Stack Overflow. Finally, if the AI is able to search the internet and "inbreed"…

The post title should be changed to "HN comments are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT", I have seen too many this weekend.
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