8 ms·

Fakernews: Builds a Markov chain using HN post titles and generates fake posts

82 points by pjf 8y ago

akhilrex 8y ago
This has existed for quite some time. https://twitter.com/HNTitles https://twitter.com/HNTitles
- ainar-g 8y ago
  A lot of these are so accurate it's uncanny.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- fundingshovel 8y ago
  I wish someone would write even half of these.
- userbinator 8y ago
  Reminds me of the spam text generated for linkfarms and such --- probably because they use the same algorithm. It gives the same "uncanny valley" feeling of looking like it was written by a human, but upon closer inspection becomes much less believable. Then again, some of them don't look "Markovian" enough and appear to be verbatim real article titles.
  - aunty_helen 8y ago
    Is there an algorithmic way of detecting this? Sometimes it seems like some of the comments on HN could have been written by an ai.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
torstenvl 8y ago
What happens when you pit Markov chain fake news against Markov chain Donald Trump? https://filiph.github.io/markov/ https://filiph.github.io/markov/
- presscast 8y ago
  This seems to perform better than the OP's link. Does anybody know why that is? Are there certain forms of data for which Markov chains perform better?
  - ryneandal 8y ago
    I think the reason is twofold: 1. Highlighted in the conclusion of the Trump Tweet article above, the idiosyncratic voice employed by 45 makes the generated tweets very familiar to his tweeting patterns 2. The Trump Tweet chains are better optimized when it comes to probability and state management. The article goes into some detail about this in the Implementation Details section.
  - torstenvl 8y ago
    As the sibling comment talks about, I think DJT's tweeting pattern helps. He often uses short sentences, so with Markov order 2 (every three words generated is a quote, more or less), there number of seams per sentence is lower. (By seams, I mean places where the generated text seems disjointed because the Markov chain consists of two non-semantic or semantically ambiguous tokens.)
heinrichf 8y ago
The first example just spat out https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17739320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17739320 with "Show HN" in front of it.
amelius 8y ago
I'd like to see this applied to patents. And then test how many of them survive the scrutiny of USPTO officers.
aldoushuxley001 8y ago
> Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Being Able to Print Automobile-Sized Metal Objects haha, Love it!
Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
Similar to this on reddit is the Subreddit Simulator[0]. The subreddit is populated entirely by bots that make posts based on Markov chains, each one trained from the posts on a specific other subreddit. The bots even post comments based on the comments from their assigned subreddit. Some of the results are hilarious. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator

82 points by pjf 8y ago

akhilrex 8y ago

This has existed for quite some time. https://twitter.com/HNTitles https://twitter.com/HNTitles

ainar-g 8y ago
A lot of these are so accurate it's uncanny.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
fundingshovel 8y ago
I wish someone would write even half of these.
userbinator 8y ago
Reminds me of the spam text generated for linkfarms and such --- probably because they use the same algorithm. It gives the same "uncanny valley" feeling of looking like it was written by a human, but upon closer inspection becomes much less believable. Then again, some of them don't look "Markovian" enough and appear to be verbatim real article titles.
- aunty_helen 8y ago
  Is there an algorithmic way of detecting this? Sometimes it seems like some of the comments on HN could have been written by an ai.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

torstenvl 8y ago

What happens when you pit Markov chain fake news against Markov chain Donald Trump? https://filiph.github.io/markov/ https://filiph.github.io/markov/

presscast 8y ago
This seems to perform better than the OP's link. Does anybody know why that is? Are there certain forms of data for which Markov chains perform better?
- ryneandal 8y ago
  I think the reason is twofold: 1. Highlighted in the conclusion of the Trump Tweet article above, the idiosyncratic voice employed by 45 makes the generated tweets very familiar to his tweeting patterns 2. The Trump Tweet chains are better optimized when it comes to probability and state management. The article goes into some detail about this in the Implementation Details section.
- torstenvl 8y ago
  As the sibling comment talks about, I think DJT's tweeting pattern helps. He often uses short sentences, so with Markov order 2 (every three words generated is a quote, more or less), there number of seams per sentence is lower. (By seams, I mean places where the generated text seems disjointed because the Markov chain consists of two non-semantic or semantically ambiguous tokens.)

heinrichf 8y ago

The first example just spat out https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17739320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17739320 with "Show HN" in front of it.

amelius 8y ago

I'd like to see this applied to patents. And then test how many of them survive the scrutiny of USPTO officers.

aldoushuxley001 8y ago

> Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Being Able to Print Automobile-Sized Metal Objects haha, Love it!

Sohcahtoa82 8y ago

Similar to this on reddit is the Subreddit Simulator[0]. The subreddit is populated entirely by bots that make posts based on Markov chains, each one trained from the posts on a specific other subreddit. The bots even post comments based on the comments from their assigned subreddit. Some of the results are hilarious. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator