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I tried to read the article too and found it both visually unpleasant and intellectually unfocused. GP is making the rather comically clever point that ChatGPT

by dcow 4y ago

I tried to read the article too and found it both visually unpleasant and intellectually unfocused. GP is making the rather comically clever point that ChatGPT is useful to summarize text that might be difficult for humans to parse, even a text claiming that ChatGPT is a useless model only capable of spewing Islamophobic speech and in need of burying. I mean the article ends on some tangent about reactionary solutionism... If you don't see the satire in that, well, you might be taking life too seriously.

jbenjoseph 4y ago
>both visually unpleasant Glad I wasn't the only one who noticed that. It's like the author picked a font/CSS combo to simulate a book with horrible typesetting.
- a10c 4y ago
  Does it look like a blurred screenshot of text to anyone else?
  - dcow 4y ago
    Love the book, and LaTeX, but it does give me these vibes https://www.google.com/books/edition/Walk_Through_Combinatorics_A_An_Introduc/32NIDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/Walk_Through_Combinator....
pvg 4y ago
I tried to read the article too and found it both visually unpleasant and intellectually unfocused. That's fine but then you're probably not in a position to have curious conversation about it. Which is also fine! But the solution to that is to find something else that's interesting to you, rather than to gunk up the thread for the people who are interested in discussing the piece.
- dcow 4y ago
  Despite the qualities I ascribed to it, I actually read the piece. That's why I chuckled at the satire of having ChatGPT summarize it. I thought it sufficiently concise and every so slightly poignant commentary, daresay curious. I haven't disparaged anybody else for their own curious conversation, have I? If you'd like to discuss whether, "The structural injustices and supremacist perspectives layered into AI put it firmly on the path of eugenicist solutions to social problems.", well, be my guest.
  - pvg 4y ago
    I didn't say you've disparaged anyone, you're defending the paste of generated content into the thread as if it's a good thing because, I dunno, you found it amusing or it tickled your sneerbone. But pasting generated content into the thread is not a good thing by HN's standards of good things for the reasons I described and the reasons you described are fine reasons but they are bad HN reasons.
    - dcow 4y ago
      I don't care where the content came from. I judged it on its merit not on its origin. If it was a bad summary or more difficult to understand than the article then it wouldn't have worked quite as well. The additional context of it being generated by the [harmful technology in question] made it meta humorous, yes, not least because I found it to be a better representation of the argument that I think the author is attempting to communicate than the form in which it was originally presented. Ultimately, the author's piece sounds more like a stochastic parrot to me than the summary by ChatGPT. Hence, I find satire an entirely appropriate tactic to spark curious discussion, in this case. It's able to communicate all that remarkably succinctly. And, though we have not discussed whether ChatGPT is harmful because OpenAI paid Kenyan works $2/hr to "clean up" the model, I do believe we have discussed the nature of the argument in the first place, which is whether a LLM can produce anything of value. It seems preposterous to claim that ChatGPT is utterly useless and harmful when a harmless use for it is shoved in your face, no? And since I laughed, I guess I value the output, oddly. Which all quite contradicts the author's assertion that bad evil technology has no value and is destroying humanity.

by dcow 4y ago

jbenjoseph 4y ago

>both visually unpleasant Glad I wasn't the only one who noticed that. It's like the author picked a font/CSS combo to simulate a book with horrible typesetting.

a10c 4y ago
Does it look like a blurred screenshot of text to anyone else?
- dcow 4y ago
  Love the book, and LaTeX, but it does give me these vibes https://www.google.com/books/edition/Walk_Through_Combinatorics_A_An_Introduc/32NIDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/Walk_Through_Combinator....

pvg 4y ago

I tried to read the article too and found it both visually unpleasant and intellectually unfocused. That's fine but then you're probably not in a position to have curious conversation about it. Which is also fine! But the solution to that is to find something else that's interesting to you, rather than to gunk up the thread for the people who are interested in discussing the piece.

dcow 4y ago
Despite the qualities I ascribed to it, I actually read the piece. That's why I chuckled at the satire of having ChatGPT summarize it. I thought it sufficiently concise and every so slightly poignant commentary, daresay curious. I haven't disparaged anybody else for their own curious conversation, have I? If you'd like to discuss whether, "The structural injustices and supremacist perspectives layered into AI put it firmly on the path of eugenicist solutions to social problems.", well, be my guest.
- pvg 4y ago
  I didn't say you've disparaged anyone, you're defending the paste of generated content into the thread as if it's a good thing because, I dunno, you found it amusing or it tickled your sneerbone. But pasting generated content into the thread is not a good thing by HN's standards of good things for the reasons I described and the reasons you described are fine reasons but they are bad HN reasons.
  - dcow 4y ago
    I don't care where the content came from. I judged it on its merit not on its origin. If it was a bad summary or more difficult to understand than the article then it wouldn't have worked quite as well. The additional context of it being generated by the [harmful technology in question] made it meta humorous, yes, not least because I found it to be a better representation of the argument that I think the author is attempting to communicate than the form in which it was originally presented. Ultimately, the author's piece sounds more like a stochastic parrot to me than the summary by ChatGPT. Hence, I find satire an entirely appropriate tactic to spark curious discussion, in this case. It's able to communicate all that remarkably succinctly. And, though we have not discussed whether ChatGPT is harmful because OpenAI paid Kenyan works $2/hr to "clean up" the model, I do believe we have discussed the nature of the argument in the first place, which is whether a LLM can produce anything of value. It seems preposterous to claim that ChatGPT is utterly useless and harmful when a harmless use for it is shoved in your face, no? And since I laughed, I guess I value the output, oddly. Which all quite contradicts the author's assertion that bad evil technology has no value and is destroying humanity.