GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News • Hacker News Board

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#51

Post by runawaybottle » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #34

dorkwood wrote: post #21

I remember skimming this article. My initial feeling was that it was written by someone who wasn't a native English speaker. It seems like I'll have to pay more close attention to that feeling in the future.

On the other hand, you could have been right. It could have been a non-native speaker. I'd hate to end up in a situation where non-native speakers are accused of being bots...

I feel like so many of you are just utterly too kind. Without getting into the generated article, we have a lot of Orwellian new speak everywhere. Your standard corporate/management/hr speak is very pervasive. It sounds inhuman. This is a language many people adopt to fit in and make it in this world. It shadows itself in blogs they write, particularly signaling blogs.

The generated article follows in this vein. That’s what gpt will replicate, not the simplicity of a non native speaker (that would be easier to spot). It will follow the amorphous blob shape of saying something, but nothing, with the ominous undertone of ‘you know what’s going on, but you wouldn’t dare speak up’.

How many of you read something from a company and instantly think ‘this sounds like horseshit?’. How long did we let that go on? Forever right? We lost this fight before it even happened.

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#52

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

ColanR wrote: post #41

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it's also true. Comments like that decrease the quality of the discussion by attacking the "author" rather than the content. (If the commenter had written even a couple sentences on why they suspected GPT-3, I would feel differently.)

I mean, there's not much to elaborate on beyond what they said: "Zero substantive content, pure regurgitation."

Then don't say anything. Click the hide button.

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#53

Post by mensetmanusman » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #9

I think GPT-3 could be blessing for Reddit and HN type forums. Add some GPT-3 content and links into the feed. Decrease the vote weight for users who upvote them and increase vote weight for those who downvote them.

GTP-3 is able to output true statements (like sentences from wikipedia).

Sometimes true sentences contribute to discussion.

Was this written by GTP-3?

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#54

Post by mensetmanusman » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #11

emsy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair: it sounds like a GPT-3 post was considered an insult back when. Not sure it passes as an insult anymore.

25 days ago?

Way back in the day.

Covid will be remembered in the future as when GTP-3 arose from the ashes.

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#55

Post by School-Cotton » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

The article if written by a human was bad -- poorly argued and trite.

However, my mind is blown if it really was written by an AI. As bad as it might seem by human standards, it's almost impossible for me to accept that this was created by an entity without consciousness or at least understanding.

Edit: it seems this might be a fraud; i.e., it indeed was produced by an entity with consciousness. I almost hope that’s true, as it’s much less unsettling.

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#56

Post by lowercase1 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

dorkwood wrote: post #21

I remember skimming this article. My initial feeling was that it was written by someone who wasn't a native English speaker. It seems like I'll have to pay more close attention to that feeling in the future.

Yeah I skimmed through and was like "there is no content here"

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#57

Post by tialaramex » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:54 AM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #12

nabla9 wrote: post #9

I think GPT-3 could be blessing for Reddit and HN type forums. Add some GPT-3 content and links into the feed. Decrease the vote weight for users who upvote them and increase vote weight for those who downvote them.

So, you’re experimenting on users without their knowledge? There’s a thing called ethics. You might want to look into that.

You can avoid ethical concerns by ensuring that users are technically informed this might be happening. In fact you might get great results by informing users this might be happening even if it you rarely or never actually do it.

You can also phrase it quite broadly so as to ensure that participants were technically informed of why it's being done and yet nonetheless unaware of what exactly you're actually doing. That's how psychologists design experiments that want to measure something subjects would prefer to conceal because of low social desirability.

For example suppose we're wondering if people are secretly biased against rectangular shapes in video games but are feeling a social pressure not to admit this bias. We tell subjects we want to test for bias against rectangles, they're going to play a video game, they are to collide with the red objects (regardless of shape) and avoid blue objects, we will show how many rectangles they hit on the screen.

But we don't actually care about the count, we actually use eye-tracking technology to measure which objects on the screen the subjects look at, when and for how long and we use this fact, that the subjects don't realise we care about, to check for bias.

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#58

Post by nabla9 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:55 AM UTC

notJim wrote: post #39

nabla9 wrote: post #9

I think GPT-3 could be blessing for Reddit and HN type forums. Add some GPT-3 content and links into the feed. Decrease the vote weight for users who upvote them and increase vote weight for those who downvote them.

Or even better, for repetitively-discussed topics, just generate the entire comment thread to save us all time. Examples: nuclear power, housing/transit policy, Tesla/Elon Musk.

Standard comments can be automated even without GPT-3:

For all scientific studies the correlation is not causality comment.

For articles related to economy the mandatory money printing rant. Sometimes the whole fractional reserve banking spiel.

For astronomy the "blows my mind how insignificant blah blah."

Anything related to nutrition should have keto anecdote. "... and I have never felt so good."

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#59

Post by codezero » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:55 AM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #30

Kuinox wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah ah ah, the answer "your comment punches below the belt and isn't acceptable in a community like this.".

The problem is that it's also true. Comments like that decrease the quality of the discussion by attacking the "author" rather than the content. (If the commenter had written even a couple sentences on why they suspected GPT-3, I would feel differently.)

I agree, and this is my instinct, but I worry about the effort becoming very asymmetric. In a world where a large amount of content CAN be generated (my time to read becomes much larger than time to generate / get my attention), and I may or may not be reading sincerely generated content, at what point do I get to attack the content creator for that, especially since it's very difficult for me to understand any given content creators intentions without some level of social proof or trust.

I think we're likely to get to a place where we either consolidate to trusted sources of information, or accept machine generated content as valuable on its own, even if for novelty and just move on with our miserable lives.

Re: GPT-3 generated blog post reach #1 on Hacker News

#60

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:58 AM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #49

greenyoda wrote: post #2

The HN article that this is about: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23893817 Congratulations to the authors of these comments, who correctly guessed that it was written by GPT-3: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23894742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23894000

This is only the tip of the iceberg. I'm certain GPT-3 has been commenting on HN threads for a while now. In some cases, its presence has been disclosed (see, for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23886503 ) In other cases, GPT-3's presence has not been disclosed; the machine has been pretending to be a human being, largely unnoticed. Consider only how easy it is for it to write short, punchy comments --…

I'm reminded of https://xkcd.com/810/.

The example comments you linked (Where GPT-3's presence was disclosed) were believably human, particularly if you were skimming, but they were not good comments. If not for the note at the end about GPT-3, I'm pretty confident they would have been downvoted.

And if I'm wrong, and GPT-3 is actually capable of writing thoughtful and substantive comments... well, in the words of XKCD, "mission fucking accomplished."