5 ms·

It’ll be interesting if we soon come to a day when a comment can be suspected to be from a bot because it’s too coherent and smart!

dang 4y ago
I agree, but in that case we can learn from the bots instead of wincing at regurgitated material. Basically, if it improves thread quality, I'm for it, and if it degrades thread quality, we should throw the book at it. The nice thing about this position is that comment quality is a function of the comments themselves, and little else.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  I suggest thinking about the purpose of discussion on HN. There’s a tension between thread quality on the one hand and the process of humans debating and learning from each other on the other hand.
  - burnished 4y ago
    I don’t think so, at least, I find that process to be very educational, especially when some one changes their mind or an otherwise strong argument gets an unusually compelling critique. Basically I think those two things are synonymous.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    If I can’t determine your comment is by a bot, does it make a difference? You are just a random name on the internet.
    - FridgeSeal 4y ago
      I mean, I’d certainly prefer to be engaged in conversation with actual humans, who have actual experience and motivation. If I want to talk to the latest iteration of the gpt-parrot-robot, I’ll go to the gpt site and talk to it there.
      - fragmede 4y ago
        Watching others more creative than I trick the bot into revealing its biases despite being programmed not to, has been highly entertaining and lets me see some of the creativity of my fellow human beings, and it definitely exceeds that of a parrot. (Not to impugn how intelligent some parrots are, but they seem to have a much more limited vocabulary.) If a curious commenter is able to come up with actually interesting content, why does it matter if there was yet a program between what they typed and what you see?
      - tobtahcia 4y ago
        ChatGPT has the potential to make online discussions more engaging and dynamic. For example, by generating additional discussion prompts or questions to keep the conversation moving.
  - CGamesPlay 4y ago
    Intelligent debate can happen in high-quality threads. And when we are intelligently debating subjective matters, the debate is targeted towards the reader, not the opposing party. On the other hand, when we are debating objective matters, the debate leads to the parties learning from the other. So I don't think these things are opposites.
    - swader999 4y ago
      I agree that intelligent debate can happen in high-quality threads, regardless of whether the topic being discussed is subjective or objective. However, I think it's important to note that the approach to debating subjective and objective matters may be different. When debating subjective matters, the focus is often on persuading the reader or audience, whereas when debating objective matters, the goal is often to arrive at the truth or the most accurate understanding of the topic at hand. In either case, engaging in intelligent debate can be a valuable way to learn and expand our understanding of the world.
  - komali2 4y ago
    I like thinking about the purpose, because I doubt there is a defined purpose right now. I have absolutely no idea why whoever hosts this site (ycombinator?) wants comments - if they're like reddit or twitter, though, it's to build a community and post history, because you can put that down as an asset and, idk, do money stuff with it. Count it in valuations and whatnot. And maybe do marketing and data mining. Or sell APIs. Stuff like that. So in this case, for the host, the "purpose" is "generate content that attracts more users to register and post, that is in a format that we can pitch as having Value to the people who decide valuations, or is in a format that we can pitch as having Value to the people who may want to pay for an API to access it, or is valuable for data mining, or, gives us enough information about the users that, combined with their contact info, functions as something we can sell for targeted ads." For me the "purpose" of discussion on HN is to fill a dopamine addiction niche that I've closed off by blocking reddit, twitter, and youtube, and, to hone ideas I have against a more-educated-than-normal and partially misaligned-against-my-values audience (I love when the pot gets stirred with stuff we aren't supposed to talk about that much such as politics and political philosophy, though I try not to be the first one to stir), and occasionally to ask a question that I'd like answered or just see what other people think about something. Do you think there's much "learning from eachother" on HN? I'm skeptical that really happens much on the chat-internet outside of huge knowledge-swaps happening on stackoverflow. I typically see confident value statements: "that's why xyz sucks," "that's not how that works," "it wasn't xyz, it was zyx," etc. Are we all doing the "say something wrong on the internet to get more answers" thing to eachother? What's the purpose of discussion on HN to you? Why are you here? The purpose of my comment is I wanna see what other people think about my reasons for posting, whether others share it, maybe some thoughts on that weird dopamine hit some of us get from posting at eachother, and see why others are here.
    - prox 4y ago
      As someone who did a lot of debates in philosophy, most casual commenters are hilariously bad at discussing something. It’s like a wheel that wobbles from its axis and the wheel quickly comes of the axis. It’s not always a bad thing, some threads are just that, casual. If the purpose for you is to get a dopamine hit and not true interest (exaggerating here) it might tune you out from the matter at hand. For me it is the aspect of a more eclectic crowd, with a host of opinions, yet often still respectful that I like. Most threads give insights that are lacking in more general, less well moderated places. You get more interesting in depth opinions and knowledge sharing what makes HN great to me.
  - ckastner 4y ago
    I don't think that thread quality and the process of humans debating and learning from each other are opposing concepts. On the contrary. It's precisely when people aren't willing to learn, or to debate respectfully and with an open mind, when thread quality deteriorates.
  - nextaccountic 4y ago
    There's the quality of the written commentary (which is all that matters for anyone only reading, never posting on HN) and the quality of the engagement of people that do write comments (which include how much their learned, the emotions they had, and other less tangible stuff) I think HN is optimizing for the former quality aspects and not the latter. So in that sense, if you can't tell if it's written by a bot, does it matter? (cue Westworld https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaahx4hMxmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaahx4hMxmw)
  - tkgally 4y ago
    There are many types of contributions to discussions on HN, of course. But I will tell you the contributions that resonate most with me: Personal experiences and anecdotes that illuminate the general issue being discussed. Sometimes a single post is enough for that illumination, and sometimes it is the sum of many such posts that sheds the brightest light. An example of the latter: Since March 2020, there have been many, many discussions on HN about work-from-home versus work-at-office. I myself started working from home at the same time, and articles about working from home started to appear in the media around then, too. But my own experience was a sample of one, and many of the media articles seemed to be based on samples not much larger. It was thus difficult judge which most people preferred, what the effects on overall productivity, family life, and mental health might be, how employers might respond when the pandemic cooled down, etc. The discussions on HN revealed better and more quickly what the range of experiences with WFH was, which types of people preferred it and which types didn’t, the possible advantages and disadvantages from the point of view of employers, etc. In contrast, discussions that focus only on general principles—freedom of this versus freedom of that, foo rights versus bar obligations, crypto flim versus fiat flam—yield less of interest, at least to me. That’s my personal experience and/or anecdote.
  - interestica 4y ago
    Yeah. Overemphasis on wanting "smart thoughtful comments" coul create a chilling effect where people might refrain from asking simple questions or posting succinct (yet valuable!) responses. Sometimes dumb questions are okay (because it's all relative).
- smeagull 4y ago
  What measure do you propose for thready quality?
- UweSchmidt 4y ago
  Then humans might just be on the sideline, watching chatbots flooding the forums with superbly researched mini-whitepapers with links, reasoning, humour; a flow of comments optimized like tiktok videos, unbeatable like chess engines in chess. Those bots could also collude with complementing comments, and create a background noise of opinions to fake a certain sentiment in the community. I have no suggestion or solution, I'm just trying to wrap my head around those possibilities.
  - techdragon 4y ago
    If there’s a bot that can take a topic and research the argument you feed it, all without hallucinating any data and made up references… please please point me to it.
    - jacooper 4y ago
      Prompt: systemd is bad
      - techdragon 4y ago
        I mean … if the whole “the internet is dead” conspiracy was true then all the Linux systemd debate for like the last 5 years was entirely generated by bots… Not that it’s true. Cause I’d know if I was a bot… unless I was programmed not to notice ;-)
- mdp2021 4y ago
  > in that case we can learn from the bots That is the whole purpose of AGI ;)
  - ofrzeta 4y ago
    Oh yeah? So maybe you would like to be the object of supervised-by-AI learning? :-)
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      > Oh yeah? Yes, absolutely yes. We use a tool because it "does things better"; we consult the Intelligent because "it is a better input"; we strive towards AGI "to get a better insight". > supervised We are all inside an interaction of reciprocal learning, Ofrzeta :)
matthberg 4y ago
There is an xkcd comic about this (of course): #810 Constructive: https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/
- ramraj07 4y ago
  Of course there is, but it’s definitely weird when the jokes only funny when it’s not easy to think of it as a real possibility! In someways this thread sounds like the real first step in the raise of true AI, in a weird banal encroachment kind of way.
  - amirhirsch 4y ago
    I think it would be really interesting to see threads on Hackernews start with an AI digestion of the article and surrounding discussion. This could provide a helpful summary and context for readers, and also potentially highlight important points and counterpoints in the conversation. It would be a great way to use AI to enhance the user experience on the site. I routinely use AI to help me communicate. Like Aaron to my Moses.
    - executesorder66 4y ago
      This has already started happening at wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-08-01/Deletion_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    When I compare the ChatGPT-generated comments to those written by real humans on most web forums, I could easily see myself preferring to only interact with AIs in the future rather than humans, where I have to deal with all kinds of stupidity and bad and rude behavior. The AIs aren't going to take over by force, it'll be because they're just nicer to deal with than real humans. Before long, we'll let AIs govern us, because the leaders we choose for ourselves (e.g. Trump) are so awful that it'll be easier to compromise on an AI. Before long, we'll all be happy to line up to get installed into Matrix pods.
jfoster 4y ago
Seems this isn't a widely held opinion, but some of what I've seen from ChatGPT is already better than the typical non-LLM equivalents.
- jfoster 4y ago
  An example: I've asked it for "package delivery notification" and it generally produces something that is a better email template than communications I've seen humans put together and have many long "review sessions" on. Potentially an incredible saving of time & effort.
ycombobreaker 4y ago
We need a variant that knows to link to the Relevant XKCD.
- Kuraj 4y ago
  Please no. We can't allow this to be a slippery slope to what is happening on reddit.
midoridensha 4y ago
From the ChatGPT-generated stuff I've seen just in the last week, I think we're already there. Most humans these days are incredibly stupid.
- mschnell 4y ago
  I would rephrase that: Humans are incredibly stupid most of the time. Only if they make diligent use of ‚system 2‘ they are not.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
TotoHorner 4y ago
“That’s too clever, you’re one of them!” i.e. The Simpsons Already did it.
baandang 4y ago
At that point the whole concept of a message board with humans exchanging information is probably over. I am ultimately motivated to read this site to read smart things and something interesting. It is quite inefficient though. This comment is great but most comments are not what I am looking for. If you could spend your time talking to Von Neumann about computing the input from thousands of random people who know far less than Von Neumann would not be interesting at all.

dang 4y ago

I agree, but in that case we can learn from the bots instead of wincing at regurgitated material. Basically, if it improves thread quality, I'm for it, and if it degrades thread quality, we should throw the book at it. The nice thing about this position is that comment quality is a function of the comments themselves, and little else.

andsoitis 4y ago
I suggest thinking about the purpose of discussion on HN. There’s a tension between thread quality on the one hand and the process of humans debating and learning from each other on the other hand.
- burnished 4y ago
  I don’t think so, at least, I find that process to be very educational, especially when some one changes their mind or an otherwise strong argument gets an unusually compelling critique. Basically I think those two things are synonymous.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  If I can’t determine your comment is by a bot, does it make a difference? You are just a random name on the internet.
  - FridgeSeal 4y ago
    I mean, I’d certainly prefer to be engaged in conversation with actual humans, who have actual experience and motivation. If I want to talk to the latest iteration of the gpt-parrot-robot, I’ll go to the gpt site and talk to it there.
    - fragmede 4y ago
      Watching others more creative than I trick the bot into revealing its biases despite being programmed not to, has been highly entertaining and lets me see some of the creativity of my fellow human beings, and it definitely exceeds that of a parrot. (Not to impugn how intelligent some parrots are, but they seem to have a much more limited vocabulary.) If a curious commenter is able to come up with actually interesting content, why does it matter if there was yet a program between what they typed and what you see?
    - tobtahcia 4y ago
      ChatGPT has the potential to make online discussions more engaging and dynamic. For example, by generating additional discussion prompts or questions to keep the conversation moving.
- CGamesPlay 4y ago
  Intelligent debate can happen in high-quality threads. And when we are intelligently debating subjective matters, the debate is targeted towards the reader, not the opposing party. On the other hand, when we are debating objective matters, the debate leads to the parties learning from the other. So I don't think these things are opposites.
  - swader999 4y ago
    I agree that intelligent debate can happen in high-quality threads, regardless of whether the topic being discussed is subjective or objective. However, I think it's important to note that the approach to debating subjective and objective matters may be different. When debating subjective matters, the focus is often on persuading the reader or audience, whereas when debating objective matters, the goal is often to arrive at the truth or the most accurate understanding of the topic at hand. In either case, engaging in intelligent debate can be a valuable way to learn and expand our understanding of the world.
- komali2 4y ago
  I like thinking about the purpose, because I doubt there is a defined purpose right now. I have absolutely no idea why whoever hosts this site (ycombinator?) wants comments - if they're like reddit or twitter, though, it's to build a community and post history, because you can put that down as an asset and, idk, do money stuff with it. Count it in valuations and whatnot. And maybe do marketing and data mining. Or sell APIs. Stuff like that. So in this case, for the host, the "purpose" is "generate content that attracts more users to register and post, that is in a format that we can pitch as having Value to the people who decide valuations, or is in a format that we can pitch as having Value to the people who may want to pay for an API to access it, or is valuable for data mining, or, gives us enough information about the users that, combined with their contact info, functions as something we can sell for targeted ads." For me the "purpose" of discussion on HN is to fill a dopamine addiction niche that I've closed off by blocking reddit, twitter, and youtube, and, to hone ideas I have against a more-educated-than-normal and partially misaligned-against-my-values audience (I love when the pot gets stirred with stuff we aren't supposed to talk about that much such as politics and political philosophy, though I try not to be the first one to stir), and occasionally to ask a question that I'd like answered or just see what other people think about something. Do you think there's much "learning from eachother" on HN? I'm skeptical that really happens much on the chat-internet outside of huge knowledge-swaps happening on stackoverflow. I typically see confident value statements: "that's why xyz sucks," "that's not how that works," "it wasn't xyz, it was zyx," etc. Are we all doing the "say something wrong on the internet to get more answers" thing to eachother? What's the purpose of discussion on HN to you? Why are you here? The purpose of my comment is I wanna see what other people think about my reasons for posting, whether others share it, maybe some thoughts on that weird dopamine hit some of us get from posting at eachother, and see why others are here.
  - prox 4y ago
    As someone who did a lot of debates in philosophy, most casual commenters are hilariously bad at discussing something. It’s like a wheel that wobbles from its axis and the wheel quickly comes of the axis. It’s not always a bad thing, some threads are just that, casual. If the purpose for you is to get a dopamine hit and not true interest (exaggerating here) it might tune you out from the matter at hand. For me it is the aspect of a more eclectic crowd, with a host of opinions, yet often still respectful that I like. Most threads give insights that are lacking in more general, less well moderated places. You get more interesting in depth opinions and knowledge sharing what makes HN great to me.
- ckastner 4y ago
  I don't think that thread quality and the process of humans debating and learning from each other are opposing concepts. On the contrary. It's precisely when people aren't willing to learn, or to debate respectfully and with an open mind, when thread quality deteriorates.
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  There's the quality of the written commentary (which is all that matters for anyone only reading, never posting on HN) and the quality of the engagement of people that do write comments (which include how much their learned, the emotions they had, and other less tangible stuff) I think HN is optimizing for the former quality aspects and not the latter. So in that sense, if you can't tell if it's written by a bot, does it matter? (cue Westworld https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaahx4hMxmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaahx4hMxmw)
- tkgally 4y ago
  There are many types of contributions to discussions on HN, of course. But I will tell you the contributions that resonate most with me: Personal experiences and anecdotes that illuminate the general issue being discussed. Sometimes a single post is enough for that illumination, and sometimes it is the sum of many such posts that sheds the brightest light. An example of the latter: Since March 2020, there have been many, many discussions on HN about work-from-home versus work-at-office. I myself started working from home at the same time, and articles about working from home started to appear in the media around then, too. But my own experience was a sample of one, and many of the media articles seemed to be based on samples not much larger. It was thus difficult judge which most people preferred, what the effects on overall productivity, family life, and mental health might be, how employers might respond when the pandemic cooled down, etc. The discussions on HN revealed better and more quickly what the range of experiences with WFH was, which types of people preferred it and which types didn’t, the possible advantages and disadvantages from the point of view of employers, etc. In contrast, discussions that focus only on general principles—freedom of this versus freedom of that, foo rights versus bar obligations, crypto flim versus fiat flam—yield less of interest, at least to me. That’s my personal experience and/or anecdote.
- interestica 4y ago
  Yeah. Overemphasis on wanting "smart thoughtful comments" coul create a chilling effect where people might refrain from asking simple questions or posting succinct (yet valuable!) responses. Sometimes dumb questions are okay (because it's all relative).
smeagull 4y ago
What measure do you propose for thready quality?
UweSchmidt 4y ago
Then humans might just be on the sideline, watching chatbots flooding the forums with superbly researched mini-whitepapers with links, reasoning, humour; a flow of comments optimized like tiktok videos, unbeatable like chess engines in chess. Those bots could also collude with complementing comments, and create a background noise of opinions to fake a certain sentiment in the community. I have no suggestion or solution, I'm just trying to wrap my head around those possibilities.
- techdragon 4y ago
  If there’s a bot that can take a topic and research the argument you feed it, all without hallucinating any data and made up references… please please point me to it.
  - jacooper 4y ago
    Prompt: systemd is bad
    - techdragon 4y ago
      I mean … if the whole “the internet is dead” conspiracy was true then all the Linux systemd debate for like the last 5 years was entirely generated by bots… Not that it’s true. Cause I’d know if I was a bot… unless I was programmed not to notice ;-)
mdp2021 4y ago
> in that case we can learn from the bots That is the whole purpose of AGI ;)
- ofrzeta 4y ago
  Oh yeah? So maybe you would like to be the object of supervised-by-AI learning? :-)
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    > Oh yeah? Yes, absolutely yes. We use a tool because it "does things better"; we consult the Intelligent because "it is a better input"; we strive towards AGI "to get a better insight". > supervised We are all inside an interaction of reciprocal learning, Ofrzeta :)

matthberg 4y ago

There is an xkcd comic about this (of course): #810 Constructive: https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/

ramraj07 4y ago
Of course there is, but it’s definitely weird when the jokes only funny when it’s not easy to think of it as a real possibility! In someways this thread sounds like the real first step in the raise of true AI, in a weird banal encroachment kind of way.
- amirhirsch 4y ago
  I think it would be really interesting to see threads on Hackernews start with an AI digestion of the article and surrounding discussion. This could provide a helpful summary and context for readers, and also potentially highlight important points and counterpoints in the conversation. It would be a great way to use AI to enhance the user experience on the site. I routinely use AI to help me communicate. Like Aaron to my Moses.
  - executesorder66 4y ago
    This has already started happening at wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-08-01/Deletion_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
- midoridensha 4y ago
  When I compare the ChatGPT-generated comments to those written by real humans on most web forums, I could easily see myself preferring to only interact with AIs in the future rather than humans, where I have to deal with all kinds of stupidity and bad and rude behavior. The AIs aren't going to take over by force, it'll be because they're just nicer to deal with than real humans. Before long, we'll let AIs govern us, because the leaders we choose for ourselves (e.g. Trump) are so awful that it'll be easier to compromise on an AI. Before long, we'll all be happy to line up to get installed into Matrix pods.

jfoster 4y ago

Seems this isn't a widely held opinion, but some of what I've seen from ChatGPT is already better than the typical non-LLM equivalents.

jfoster 4y ago
An example: I've asked it for "package delivery notification" and it generally produces something that is a better email template than communications I've seen humans put together and have many long "review sessions" on. Potentially an incredible saving of time & effort.

ycombobreaker 4y ago

We need a variant that knows to link to the Relevant XKCD.

Kuraj 4y ago
Please no. We can't allow this to be a slippery slope to what is happening on reddit.

midoridensha 4y ago

From the ChatGPT-generated stuff I've seen just in the last week, I think we're already there. Most humans these days are incredibly stupid.

mschnell 4y ago
I would rephrase that: Humans are incredibly stupid most of the time. Only if they make diligent use of ‚system 2‘ they are not.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

TotoHorner 4y ago

“That’s too clever, you’re one of them!” i.e. The Simpsons Already did it.

baandang 4y ago

At that point the whole concept of a message board with humans exchanging information is probably over. I am ultimately motivated to read this site to read smart things and something interesting. It is quite inefficient though. This comment is great but most comments are not what I am looking for. If you could spend your time talking to Von Neumann about computing the input from thousands of random people who know far less than Von Neumann would not be interesting at all.