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I don't get the point of this article. ChatGPT and it's ilk are not going away. They are here, now, and our friends and families will start using them very soon

I don't get the point of this article. ChatGPT and it's ilk are not going away. They are here, now, and our friends and families will start using them very soon. I have a contrarian view from this article that ChatGPT is actually good for the mainstream audience because it will teach them to think about how trust worthy the information is coming from a machine. Most people will understand they have to take what is being said by a machine with a grain of salt (or they will soon). Maybe they'll start applying some of those discernment skills to popular mainstream media. The cat's out of the bag. You can no longer bury it.

an_aparallel 4y ago
Does TikTok, Android/Google,Instagram use make the same friends and family think about privacy and data? From a cursory look at...nearly everyone...i'd say the answer is a resounding no
- edrxty 4y ago
  When Facebook came around we all knew it would be a disaster, and it was. When TikTok/Instagram replaced it, we knew it would be worse, and it was. Now we have LLMs that vanishingly few people in the greater public actually understand and we know they'll be used for every possible evil imaginable at scale. I'm not optimistic. See you all in the hellish afterscape.
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    Actually, Instagram was pretty sane for a long time. Until recently it just showed me who I followed and nothing else. Now they're trying to complete with TikTok and I get all these crappy suggested reels and it's turning me off the platform. But for a long time it was pretty good unlike Facebook that ruined itself with its algorithmic feed.
  - takeda 4y ago
    > When Facebook came around we all knew it would be a disaster, and it was. Not really. When Facebook started as college exclusive social site it seem quite innocent. Later when it created news-feed, opened up to everyone etc it became a cesspool. Once people started getting their news from it, that's when it became dangerous.
    - edrxty 4y ago
      We were freaked out about it way back in 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1289997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1289997
- albntomat0 4y ago
  Privacy concerns and ChatGPT have different failure modes. If ChatGPT fabricates a link or makes something up, there's a potential feedback mechanism. E.g. I ask ChatGPT to explain a science term, and then I get told that my understanding is incorrect in class when I use the ChatGPT definition. It doesn't exist for every use case, but I'm hopeful everyone will be "bitten" once by ChatGPT etc., and then folks will verify its output appropriately.
  - grp000 4y ago
    This doesn't seem much different to me than how people should use wikipedia. It looks like it will be a useful tool to use, you just can't be careless.
    - alfalfasprout 4y ago
      Wikipedia has moderation and standards for sourcing, etc. that has made it generally very reliable. ChatGPT is a fancy parrot that sounds reliable. To actually verify that its output is correct requires more work and cross-referencing sources, etc.
      - grp000 4y ago
        That's a good point. For more complex topics, the act of verifying correctness is also more complex. I think it's a fair tradeoff though. A more powerful tool also requires more work to use CORRECTLY. Now, whether people will actually put in due diligence is another matter.
- labrador 4y ago
  Most people don't care about ad tracking or profiling. Nobody in real life complains about it. They get it that "free" means ad tracking. People care very much about making good decisions so they will be careful about blindly trusting the output of a machine.
kornhole 4y ago
You might be more confident than me in people's ability to discern BS. I think I am reasonably intelligent, but I get fooled all the time. Compounding the problem is that it is easier to fool someone than to tell him he has been fooled.
deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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jacobsenscott 4y ago
There's no cat and no bag - just statistical sleight of hand. The people playing the trick know this, and are just collecting investor dollars while they can (and astroturfing every HN article that explains what it is). Relying on the output of chatgpt is no different than doing a rain dance and expecting it to rain.
- qup 4y ago
  I'd say it's more like relying on a minimum wage employee. It gets right (what I'm asking it to do) most of the time, but not always, and you gotta check up on it. I don't understand why people act like it has to be 100% reliable to be useful.
  - jacobsenscott 4y ago
    Because if you need to check up on it, just do what you would do to check up on it in the first place. Coding is a very niche area where often you can tell if it is giving good answers. I think that's why HN people think it is so dope. In almost any other domain finding information from reliable sources is key, and chatgpt can't help with that at all.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
I can't even teach my baby boomer aged inlaws to understand that obvious bullshit social media chainposts (along the lines of "copy this into your timeline to stop facebook from selling your data") are fake. There's no way they're going to see past ML-generated content, esp ones where feedback from success/fail ratios will cause it to 'improve' over time. We might not be able to bury the cat, but that's hardly a good thing. Shits going to get really awkward for the next few decades.

an_aparallel 4y ago

Does TikTok, Android/Google,Instagram use make the same friends and family think about privacy and data? From a cursory look at...nearly everyone...i'd say the answer is a resounding no

edrxty 4y ago
When Facebook came around we all knew it would be a disaster, and it was. When TikTok/Instagram replaced it, we knew it would be worse, and it was. Now we have LLMs that vanishingly few people in the greater public actually understand and we know they'll be used for every possible evil imaginable at scale. I'm not optimistic. See you all in the hellish afterscape.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Actually, Instagram was pretty sane for a long time. Until recently it just showed me who I followed and nothing else. Now they're trying to complete with TikTok and I get all these crappy suggested reels and it's turning me off the platform. But for a long time it was pretty good unlike Facebook that ruined itself with its algorithmic feed.
- takeda 4y ago
  > When Facebook came around we all knew it would be a disaster, and it was. Not really. When Facebook started as college exclusive social site it seem quite innocent. Later when it created news-feed, opened up to everyone etc it became a cesspool. Once people started getting their news from it, that's when it became dangerous.
  - edrxty 4y ago
    We were freaked out about it way back in 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1289997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1289997
albntomat0 4y ago
Privacy concerns and ChatGPT have different failure modes. If ChatGPT fabricates a link or makes something up, there's a potential feedback mechanism. E.g. I ask ChatGPT to explain a science term, and then I get told that my understanding is incorrect in class when I use the ChatGPT definition. It doesn't exist for every use case, but I'm hopeful everyone will be "bitten" once by ChatGPT etc., and then folks will verify its output appropriately.
- grp000 4y ago
  This doesn't seem much different to me than how people should use wikipedia. It looks like it will be a useful tool to use, you just can't be careless.
  - alfalfasprout 4y ago
    Wikipedia has moderation and standards for sourcing, etc. that has made it generally very reliable. ChatGPT is a fancy parrot that sounds reliable. To actually verify that its output is correct requires more work and cross-referencing sources, etc.
    - grp000 4y ago
      That's a good point. For more complex topics, the act of verifying correctness is also more complex. I think it's a fair tradeoff though. A more powerful tool also requires more work to use CORRECTLY. Now, whether people will actually put in due diligence is another matter.
labrador 4y ago
Most people don't care about ad tracking or profiling. Nobody in real life complains about it. They get it that "free" means ad tracking. People care very much about making good decisions so they will be careful about blindly trusting the output of a machine.

kornhole 4y ago

You might be more confident than me in people's ability to discern BS. I think I am reasonably intelligent, but I get fooled all the time. Compounding the problem is that it is easier to fool someone than to tell him he has been fooled.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

jacobsenscott 4y ago

There's no cat and no bag - just statistical sleight of hand. The people playing the trick know this, and are just collecting investor dollars while they can (and astroturfing every HN article that explains what it is). Relying on the output of chatgpt is no different than doing a rain dance and expecting it to rain.

qup 4y ago
I'd say it's more like relying on a minimum wage employee. It gets right (what I'm asking it to do) most of the time, but not always, and you gotta check up on it. I don't understand why people act like it has to be 100% reliable to be useful.
- jacobsenscott 4y ago
  Because if you need to check up on it, just do what you would do to check up on it in the first place. Coding is a very niche area where often you can tell if it is giving good answers. I think that's why HN people think it is so dope. In almost any other domain finding information from reliable sources is key, and chatgpt can't help with that at all.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

I can't even teach my baby boomer aged inlaws to understand that obvious bullshit social media chainposts (along the lines of "copy this into your timeline to stop facebook from selling your data") are fake. There's no way they're going to see past ML-generated content, esp ones where feedback from success/fail ratios will cause it to 'improve' over time. We might not be able to bury the cat, but that's hardly a good thing. Shits going to get really awkward for the next few decades.