5 ms·

It is so weird reading all these comments. Almost half of them start out as "it's impressive.. but". Is it human nature or are HN commenters just so sceptical/

It is so weird reading all these comments. Almost half of them start out as "it's impressive.. but". Is it human nature or are HN commenters just so sceptical/negative of all the new tech? One of the OpenAI guys mentioned that they could potentially use the same technique in real life applications like surgery. Surgery is not "just" run on a computer it has a physical component too. Is that really the next step or was he just throwing out a random example people could understand?

burkaman 9y ago
HN culture strongly discourages unsubstantive comments like "wow, this is great" that don't add to the conversation. It's hard to comment positively and substantively on a story like this, because it requires you to understand the subject matter well enough to describe some interesting feature, or bring up related work. It's usually much easier to find a flaw, or something that looks like a flaw to fellow non-experts. This comment section actually seems ok, but usually you'll see mostly neutral or negative comments.
kevinwang 9y ago
>Is that really the next step or was he just throwing out a random example people could understand? More of the latter than the former. He was talking more in broad strokes about ai research in general then this specific project.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
In my years on HN I think I've only seen a handful of comment sections that are predominantly positive or lauditory. That's not to say they are negative, but usually critical or cynical. I think it's good, keeps people on their toes.
thinkfurther 9y ago
Why not ask them directly, if you actually want to ask rather than make up? For me it makes as much sense as comparing someone sewing pieces of clothes together with someone pulling a zipper. Did people also have races against cars all the time? Is anyone getting excited over some plastic not changing texture when submerged in water for days or even years, while humans get elephant skin rather quickly? I do find all of that highly interesting, but it's more a morbid curiosity than being amazed. > One of the OpenAI guys mentioned that they could potentially use the same technique in real life applications like surgery. Oh yeah, it will all be for benefiting the elderly and the poor, I'm sure. At some point, ever around the corner. It won't benefit the people who need to have surgery in the first place because the so called civilized world can't even deal with warmongers and power mad cops, can't reign in sheer greed and sociopathy -- but nobody who has excuses today will still have them when faced with fully automatic enforcement systems. Generally, at least allow for the possibility that someone who is not utterly fascinated by something you like might not be less curious and progressive than you, but the opposite, and that what you think is the bigger picture being a fraction of what they see. At least until you actually asked the people whose comments you don't like.
- burkaman 9y ago
  > Why not ask them directly, if you actually want to ask rather than make up? It would be annoying to ask the same question 10 different times in a thread, I think a top level comment is better. Also, I didn't see any made up explanation in the parent comment, it looks like a straightforward question to me. > the so called civilized world can't even deal with warmongers and power mad cops, can't reign in sheer greed and sociopathy Can't this be used to shut down literally any conversation? It's obviously not possible for any one innovation or idea to solve all these problems, so it's not really that useful to point out. Would you dismiss any story that doesn't say "war solved"? > allow for the possibility that someone who is not utterly fascinated by something you like might not be less curious and progressive than you, but the opposite, and that what you think is the bigger picture being a fraction of what they see Where are you getting this from? Nobody said this, who are you attacking? This comment is so absurdly negative, and it seems completely unprovoked.
Chestofdraw 9y ago
I haven't actually made an 'It's impressive.. but' comment yet but I've wanted to so here's why I'd say that. Firstly, much like most things a lot of the press releases have been pretty disingenuous. I'm pretty salty about Elon Musks tweet - > OpenAI first ever to defeat world's best players in competitive eSports. Vastly more complex than traditional board games like chess & Go. 1v1 SF mid is several orders of magnitude less complex than an actual game of dota and probably a lot less complex than chess & Go as well. More than that, 1v1 showcases haven't been a thing for quite a while now for good reasons, the last time they did a 1v1 showcase was at TI4 (in 2014). When they did these the format was best of 3 with the first two games being QoP VS Puck and then the decider would be SF VS SF. This was done because QoP VS Puck is a very mind gamey, strategic, match-up whereas SF VS SF heavily emphasizes mechanical skill where you can snowball off of last hits and denies, giving the match-up more of a sudden death feel. You'd expect a bot to be very good at the SF match-up but struggle with the QoP / Puck match-up where there is a lot more decision space. To go back to what I said about 1v1 showcases not really being a thing anymore: Back in Dendi's day mid was actually a solo lane but these days in a real game the mid has to constantly be aware of support rotations. The bots super aggressive positioning would be heavily punished even in fairly low MMR pubs so I suspect the pros have deeply ingrained positioning rules that make them hesitate rather than match the bots stance. All that said, the bot is really impressive and I can't wait for the 5v5 bot next year. It will be super interesting to see what strats it goes for and how much it emphasizes the bots inhuman reaction times / micro skill.

burkaman 9y ago

HN culture strongly discourages unsubstantive comments like "wow, this is great" that don't add to the conversation. It's hard to comment positively and substantively on a story like this, because it requires you to understand the subject matter well enough to describe some interesting feature, or bring up related work. It's usually much easier to find a flaw, or something that looks like a flaw to fellow non-experts. This comment section actually seems ok, but usually you'll see mostly neutral or negative comments.

kevinwang 9y ago

>Is that really the next step or was he just throwing out a random example people could understand? More of the latter than the former. He was talking more in broad strokes about ai research in general then this specific project.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

In my years on HN I think I've only seen a handful of comment sections that are predominantly positive or lauditory. That's not to say they are negative, but usually critical or cynical. I think it's good, keeps people on their toes.

thinkfurther 9y ago

Why not ask them directly, if you actually want to ask rather than make up? For me it makes as much sense as comparing someone sewing pieces of clothes together with someone pulling a zipper. Did people also have races against cars all the time? Is anyone getting excited over some plastic not changing texture when submerged in water for days or even years, while humans get elephant skin rather quickly? I do find all of that highly interesting, but it's more a morbid curiosity than being amazed. > One of the OpenAI guys mentioned that they could potentially use the same technique in real life applications like surgery. Oh yeah, it will all be for benefiting the elderly and the poor, I'm sure. At some point, ever around the corner. It won't benefit the people who need to have surgery in the first place because the so called civilized world can't even deal with warmongers and power mad cops, can't reign in sheer greed and sociopathy -- but nobody who has excuses today will still have them when faced with fully automatic enforcement systems. Generally, at least allow for the possibility that someone who is not utterly fascinated by something you like might not be less curious and progressive than you, but the opposite, and that what you think is the bigger picture being a fraction of what they see. At least until you actually asked the people whose comments you don't like.

burkaman 9y ago
> Why not ask them directly, if you actually want to ask rather than make up? It would be annoying to ask the same question 10 different times in a thread, I think a top level comment is better. Also, I didn't see any made up explanation in the parent comment, it looks like a straightforward question to me. > the so called civilized world can't even deal with warmongers and power mad cops, can't reign in sheer greed and sociopathy Can't this be used to shut down literally any conversation? It's obviously not possible for any one innovation or idea to solve all these problems, so it's not really that useful to point out. Would you dismiss any story that doesn't say "war solved"? > allow for the possibility that someone who is not utterly fascinated by something you like might not be less curious and progressive than you, but the opposite, and that what you think is the bigger picture being a fraction of what they see Where are you getting this from? Nobody said this, who are you attacking? This comment is so absurdly negative, and it seems completely unprovoked.

Chestofdraw 9y ago

I haven't actually made an 'It's impressive.. but' comment yet but I've wanted to so here's why I'd say that. Firstly, much like most things a lot of the press releases have been pretty disingenuous. I'm pretty salty about Elon Musks tweet - > OpenAI first ever to defeat world's best players in competitive eSports. Vastly more complex than traditional board games like chess & Go. 1v1 SF mid is several orders of magnitude less complex than an actual game of dota and probably a lot less complex than chess & Go as well. More than that, 1v1 showcases haven't been a thing for quite a while now for good reasons, the last time they did a 1v1 showcase was at TI4 (in 2014). When they did these the format was best of 3 with the first two games being QoP VS Puck and then the decider would be SF VS SF. This was done because QoP VS Puck is a very mind gamey, strategic, match-up whereas SF VS SF heavily emphasizes mechanical skill where you can snowball off of last hits and denies, giving the match-up more of a sudden death feel. You'd expect a bot to be very good at the SF match-up but struggle with the QoP / Puck match-up where there is a lot more decision space. To go back to what I said about 1v1 showcases not really being a thing anymore: Back in Dendi's day mid was actually a solo lane but these days in a real game the mid has to constantly be aware of support rotations. The bots super aggressive positioning would be heavily punished even in fairly low MMR pubs so I suspect the pros have deeply ingrained positioning rules that make them hesitate rather than match the bots stance. All that said, the bot is really impressive and I can't wait for the 5v5 bot next year. It will be super interesting to see what strats it goes for and how much it emphasizes the bots inhuman reaction times / micro skill.