Live data from Hacker News

Warranty Void If Regenerated

nearzero.software

171–180 of 353 posts

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#171
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did people who used typewriters imagine a world with iPhones? Did people flying planes imagine self landing rockets? Yes, science fiction writers and readers have, since before any of us were born.

I kindly can’t tell if you missed my point. As much as past writers and readers could imagine a version of our present, I also imagine that if they got transported here they would still be in awe of what they saw

I agree. I imagine that a writer who predicted modern technology would still be in awe to see smartphone videoconf halfway around the globe finally realized.

And also be surprised by some of the uses to which it's put. And horrified by some of the societal backsliding despite what should be utopian technology.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#172
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is why some of the comments are from a day ago but the post is only a couple of hours old. We originally downranked it due to being AI-generated. But on reflection and discussion with the author, we decided that enough HN users may find that it gratifies intellectual curiosity, because it's interesting to see how a human and an AI bot can collaborate to create writing like this. We just asked the author to…

"it's boring to see how a human and an AI bot can collaborate to create writing like this." FTFY

I wanted to agree, but this story is really good.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it about it that makes the story less interesting to you? It's the same story, down to the same delicate details. When AI-slop stops being, well, slop, and just is everything that humans do, but much better, and much more efficient—will we have the same repulsion to it that many of us do now? I find it interesting to ponder. We look at the luddite movement as futile and somewhat fatalistic in a way. I feel li…

Stories are particularly troubling because we have the concept of "suspending disbelief" and readers tend to take a leap of faith with longwinded narratives because we assume the author is going somewhere with the story and has written purposefully. When AI can write convincingly enough, it is basically a honeypot for human readers. It looks well-written enough. The concept is interesting and we think it is going som…

Right, but in the present case we have exactly what you're describing—a story, almost fully written by AI but with some human cherry-picking in the mix. And readers are finding it a phenomenal story and then wanting to vomit retrospectively in learning about the authorship. It just seems patently obvious to me that this is not where the sentiment is going to stay—it will hit the margin, like the people who decide to not own a cell phone, or those who would rather listen to analog audio; there will be a market for it but it will exist at the margin. Eventually, especially for young people, more and more of what they consume will be AI generated and they won't care because it's indistinguishable from human work.

Or, I digress, it will be distinguishable from human work but because it's so much better than anything that a human could have ever created. These AI tools that we have now are as dumb as they will ever be. If we ever reach AGI or superintelligence or whatever—or even if not, even if these tools just advance for 10 more years on their current trajectory—it's easy for me to imagine some scenario where the machines can generate something so perfect to your liking that you just prefer it to anything a human ever would have created, storytelling and all.

You can take the general case where AI can just generate a better movie than a team of humans ever could plausibly generate. After all, AI doesn't have any of the physical constraints of a movie studio—the budget, the logistics of traveling from location to location, the catering, the fact that the crew has to sleep, has to coordinate schedules, all that. AI, with some human involvement or not, could just keep iterating on some script on a laptop overnight until its created an optimized version which is more satisfying to humans than any other human made movie ever created. Or in a narrow case it could create the perfect movie for you, given what it knows about you and your interests. All human movies would look inferior.

For my kids, who I'm sure are going to grow up in a world where this type of art is embedded everywhere—and where the human version is almost certainly going to be worse—I don't think the desperate cries to see the last scrap of human ingenuity will mean anything. All of these people throwing rocks at Waymos and others boycotting companies for generating ads rather than shooting one with a video studio; it's so obviously helpless, desperate and obviously futile in the face of what's coming.

I mourn the future that seems plausible here but I also welcome it as inevitable. The technology is coming, and people are going to have to adapt one way or another.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#176
LLM's also do well with writing parables, so try something like: "write a parable about a software engineer battle against the compiler and discovering that letting go of control and letting the compiler help him build better applications. The style can be where the developer is a toad, but also a monk, and the compiler is a snake.". You can do it with any profession ("doctor vs management", "nurse working overtime") and it can write very insightful parables.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#178
post #61

I'm trying to sort out my own emotions on this. I did not realize this was AI generated while reading it until I came to the comments here... And I feel genuinely had? Like "oh wow, you got me"... I don't like this feeling. It's certainly the longest thing (I know about) I've taken the time to read that was AI generated. The writing struck me as genuinely good, like something out of The New Yorker. I found the story…

> She was sitting in one of the plastic chairs, holding a cup of the adequate coffee

and other stuff... it's not that good.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#179
post #61

I'm trying to sort out my own emotions on this. I did not realize this was AI generated while reading it until I came to the comments here... And I feel genuinely had? Like "oh wow, you got me"... I don't like this feeling. It's certainly the longest thing (I know about) I've taken the time to read that was AI generated. The writing struck me as genuinely good, like something out of The New Yorker. I found the story…

I have the same issue with AI generated music : it can be quite good to say the least.

But I deeply feel that art only matters if there is an artist. The artist wants to convey something.

What makes you uneasy (if you are like me) is that a machine deliberately created emotions in your brain. And positive emotions, at that. It’s really something I can’t stand.

Re: Warranty Void If Regenerated

#180
post #61

I'm trying to sort out my own emotions on this. I did not realize this was AI generated while reading it until I came to the comments here... And I feel genuinely had? Like "oh wow, you got me"... I don't like this feeling. It's certainly the longest thing (I know about) I've taken the time to read that was AI generated. The writing struck me as genuinely good, like something out of The New Yorker. I found the story…

I also had no idea this was LLM generated. After reading your comment, I had a similar emotional reaction. Thinking deeper, it seems prudent that we tag submissions like this with a prefix. Example: "LLM: ". This would be similar to "Show HN: ". While we cannot control what the original sources choose to disclose, we can fill that gap ourselves. My point: I agree with you: It is misleading that the blog post does not…

People don’t want to self-disclose their use of AI I’ve noticed, especially the ones that put the least effort into using it. So this will only work for a small portion of the AI content.
Post reply on HN