If the Q & A is already out there if argue we don't need it asking and, if we're lucky, answering again.
If the Q & A isn't our there, then it'll be asked on an online platform.
Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
351–360 of 366 posts
Re: Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
#352I subscribe to a bunch of technical subreddits and over the last 2 years I've seen so many questions spammed to multiple subreddits. The account is new or every reply seems to be generic 1 line responses that could be autogenerated. I assume they are bot accounts to train an AI. Now before I write a longer technical explanation I look to determine if this is a real human asking and only then will I bother to reply.
You're helping to train them regardless.
I reckon that, ultimately, the success of "gift culture", "kNoWlEdGe ShOuLd Be Free!!!1", F/OSS, et al. via the WWW will cast this entire Stallman-esque hacker ethos in a bad light.
We all work for IBM^H^H^HOpenAI, but there's nothing like the GPL to back us up now!
Re: Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
#353The problem is eventually what are LLMs going’s to draw from? They’re not creating new information, just regurgitating and combining existing info. That’s why they perform so poorly on code for which there aren’t many many publicly available samples, SO/reddit answers etc.
Simple. Codebases on GitHub, research papers posted on journals, raw data posted online, phone data, emails..
There is plenty of data even without QA forums.
Re: Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are types of people who will just take until no more can be given which is a type of evil, which is why you need to vet people beforehand but an LLM is simply a programmatic implementation of taking. Your first argument largely rests on this, but isn't the fact that so many LLM-created answers get posted actually proof of the opposite? The LLM is, after all, "giving" here - and it's not like those answers are…
If the latter were true, then we would have seen the demand increase for all those specialized fields from graduates, but we have seen its just like what it was, no jobs and more debt, Older people fulfilling roles, until they retire or die and positions that aren't getting filled despite advertising for months to years. My generation will be dead within that time period, you should see at least some replacement by n…
> Name one modern real non-market socialist state that exists today that has not failed, and I'll be willing to consider your last statement.
Your focus on the false dichotomy between state action and private action makes me want to go tongue-in-cheek and name France. Definitely a non-market socialist state.
And for the record, I do agree that everything will get progressively worse, for ideological and for material reasons. But in both cases for different reasons than you suggest. The unholy marriage of extreme concentrations of wealth and the reemergence of fascism has been blessed with many children, but the Musks, Murdochs, Kochs and Thiels of this world will have little recourse against an economic reality wrecked by climate change, the drying up of fossil fuels and the bitter demographic outlook.
Re: Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the latter were true, then we would have seen the demand increase for all those specialized fields from graduates, but we have seen its just like what it was, no jobs and more debt, Older people fulfilling roles, until they retire or die and positions that aren't getting filled despite advertising for months to years. My generation will be dead within that time period, you should see at least some replacement by n…
> Name one modern real non-market socialist state that exists today that has not failed, and I'll be willing to consider your last statement. Your focus on the false dichotomy between state action and private action makes me want to go tongue-in-cheek and name France. Definitely a non-market socialist state. And for the record, I do agree that everything will get progressively worse, for ideological and for material…
While Frances debt to GDP as a single country has reached above that threshold, the driver of statism is the primary currency they use, and they pooled their primary currency with the eurozone (i.e. the euro), and the aggregated country debt ratio for the Euro is still only around 88% largely because they have tied it indirectly to the USD.
Still though, you see high concentration, loss of jobs, high unemployment, all classic signs often seen in socialist states right before major calamity or outright failure.
I'd say though the France won't have gotten to non-market socialism until their primary underlying currency hits those milestones, but they will see the chaos much sooner when the shoe does drop.
Re: Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
#356Wondering about wider implications. If technical interactions reduce online, how about RL and how do we rate a human competence against an AI once society gets a habit from asking an AI first? Will we start to constantly question human advice or responses and what does that do to the human condition. I am active in a few specialized fields and already I have to defined my advice against poorly crafted prompt response…
> Will we start to constantly question human advice or responses and what does that do to the human condition. I'm surprised when people don't already engage in questioning like that. I've had to be doing it for decades at this point. Much of the worst advice and information I've ever received has come from expensive human so-called "professionals" and "experts" like doctors, accountants, lawyers, financial advisors,…
If an LLM is built upon a wide base of source information, I'm inclined to trust what it generates more than what a single human "professional" or "expert" says.
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That, and if the prompt to the LLM has been made with a minimum of thought you may get a reasonable answer, perhaps a better one. The consensus is powerful but the two limitations "wide base" and "thoughtful prompt" are big limitations because for specialised fields these limitations apply often. So I am surprise people are inclined to believe the machine more than the human.
Re: Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
thank you for bringing the default SO reasons why these are not the case, but first off >Often these are students asking for someone to solve their homework problems. I don't think I've been in any class since elementary school in which I did not have foundational knowledge, I'm talking "I just realized there must be a technical discipline that handles this issue and I can't google my way to it level of questions." I…
> I don't think I've been in any class since elementary school in which I did not have foundational knowledge > If I'm a student, I have a textbook and the ability to read You are such an outlier that I don't think you have the awareness to make any useful observations on this topic. Quite a lot of students in the US are now starting to lack the ability to read, horrifyingly (and it was never 100%), and using ChatGPT…
How is this a useful observation?
You went blind in one eye to see out the other.
Re: Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
While this article doesn’t really seem to be hitting what I am about to say, I think someone on HN a while back described a related phenomenon (which leads to the same issue) really well. The Internet is Balkanizing. This is hardly a new concept but they were drilling down specifically into online communities. People are electing to not freely share information on public forums like they used to. They are retreating…
Yes, it's sad. On the other hand, I think it's a good thing that people share knowledge less, publicly and free of charge on the web, because there is so much exploitation going on. Big corporations obviously capitalize on the good will of people with their LLMs, but there are also others who take advantage of the ones who want to help. A lot of users seemingly expect others to solve their problems for free and don't…
I honestly don’t agree with a lot of this. I don’t think it’s a good thing at all for people to stop publicly and freely sharing knowledge. I’ve always found the US library system to be an example of how foundational and important knowledge is: so important that it should be free to everybody.
Re: Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
While this article doesn’t really seem to be hitting what I am about to say, I think someone on HN a while back described a related phenomenon (which leads to the same issue) really well. The Internet is Balkanizing. This is hardly a new concept but they were drilling down specifically into online communities. People are electing to not freely share information on public forums like they used to. They are retreating…
You mentioned forums twice, but what (non-platform) forums do you know that "engag[ed] in increasingly hostile design and monetization processes" ?
Reddit is a pretty obvious example. While not a “traditional forum” it certainly fills that role for hundreds of millions of people. Discord is also making questionable decisions but the relative autonomy people have gives them more tolerance for it.
Re: Large language models reduce public knowledge sharing on online Q&A platforms
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You may have read hundres of books in your life, maybe even thousands. You haven't read a million. You don't need to. Sometimes online forums are the only place where you can find solutions for niche situations and edge cases. Tricks which would have been very difficult to figure out on your own. LLMs can train on the official documentation of tools l/libraries but they can't experiment and figure out solutions to…
> Sometimes online forums are the only place where you can find solutions for niche situations and edge cases. That's the most valuable aspect of it. When you find yourself in these niches situations, it's nice when you see someone has encountered it and has done the legwork to solve it, saving you hours and days. And that's why Wikis like the Arch Wiki are important. You need people to document the system, not just…
the Gentoo Wiki is also high on my list, actually first because Gentoo is my preferred choice, equal in terms of useful content, only second in userbase - to Arch.
Gentoo also implemented a policy prohibiting people from contributing LLM output. Theres not a culty rule-following edit-sanitization mod team, and the wiki doesnt require special permission, just the honor system, but so far its enough to make me like contributing to it is a form of charity to help future mankind.