7 ms·

What's up all these GPT bot comments here on HN lately? Seems like a fairly new phenomenon.

mmanfrin 4y ago
Very strange indeed, first I've seen it, but they're all the same format and all new accounts.
hombre_fatal 4y ago
Bots seem to be seasonal creatures. Some months you won't see any. And then some months you'll see four per submission. I'd just downvote and reconvene when it seems to be a substantial issue. As for GPT, the bots you usually see on HN are just as easily written by humans. GPT makes sense for scale, but it's not very interesting when bots are posting at such low volume, so it doesn't necessarily have to be the case nor does it really change anything.
- doctoboggan 4y ago
  I see 4 dead comments, but I suspect one of them is from a real human (derjanni)
  - hackbert 4y ago
    I’ve seen a lot of new users today that were rage silenced, including obviously human ones.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Looking at their history I think they are related to the bots as they have a suspicious number of threads where the bots also chime in.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    They have submitted two "blog posts" from their own website whose insightlessness reeks of GPT, whose comments here are nothing but bots from brand new accounts. If there's a ring, they are the ringleader.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  Yeah, bots - sure. GPT? No way. My rapid-classification pattern matcher, honed on two decades of running blogs and web bulletin boards, recognizes the shape, cadence and sound of these comments as indicative of the usual kind of spam comment, common in the last 15+ years. I.e. they came out of some boring, old-school script. (Though I do wonder, how much of the spam comments on random, long-forgotten wordpress blogs, ended up in the GPT-{3,4} training data.)
slmjkdbtl 4y ago
[flagged]
- jdthedisciple 4y ago
  Thanks ChatGPT
  - slmjkdbtl 4y ago
    You're welcome! We hope you enjoyed your experience using our model and we look forward to seeing more of what you can create in the future :) #ChatbotGeneration
    - rashkov 4y ago
      Your personal site (in your profile) is quite the work of art, brought me joy
      - slmjkdbtl 4y ago
        Thank you so much! And sorry for the trolling.
tysam_and 4y ago
They sorta read like those ride reviews from the theme park denizens of SimCoaster tbh.
LegitShady 4y ago
unfortunately this is the future of the entire internet - and not just the comments the submissions as well. the search for authenticity and actual human material will become the most valuable thing. This isn't that different from what we have now as people have abandoned corporate messaging for communities and podcasts/youtube/etc to try to find authentic human voices. The difference will be how much harder it will become to catch the bots.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hackbert 4y ago
  And the tough part is new users being kicked out when someone thinks they’re a bot. How do we protect people from the bot witch-hunt?
  - noizejoy 4y ago
    On the other hand if your human comment is indistinguishable from a bot comment, maybe it’s ok to be kicked out? Related: Reverse Turing Test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Turing_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Turing_test
    - LegitShady 4y ago
      It depends on the community. I think its ok for humans to not be perfect, sometimes. Meanwhile I have no interest in what ChatGPT thinks about anything.
  - ghoogl 4y ago
    [dead]
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    You've hit a pet peeve of mine: The key feature of witch hunts as a concept is the non-existence of witches. If you have a hunt for something that certainly exists (Soviet spies infiltrating US institutions come to mind) it definitively isn't a witch-hunt. For my part, I'm going to keep downvoting comments that say nothing in the most bland way imaginable, and flagging anyone who posts "I put your question into ChatGPT; here's what it says" (in contexts other than discussions of chat bots).
skullone 4y ago
Do you have any examples before they were deleted? I wonder if I'd even recognize a fancy bot comment
- csallen 4y ago
  Turn on "showdead" in your HN account settings, and you can see deleted content.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  At the moment it's a few brand new accounts posting essentially the same content-less statement that covers the big points in the headline {novelty, pollination, frog}. Example: That's amazing! It's incredible that we are still discovering new species, and that some of them can even have special abilities like pollinating. I'm looking forward to reading more about this frog.
  - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
    Kind of concerning that "hey that's pretty neat" comments are immediately suspected (probably accurately) of being bots. A comment like that example isn't useful to the other comment readers, but it's probably pretty motivating to the author, and it makes forums more positive places. Removing the organic versions of those will make forums a more negative place, and that's a shame.
    - InitialLastName 4y ago
      I'd be more accepting of a "hey that's pretty neat" comment if it didn't read like the equivalent of a middle schooler's attempt to restate the headline as if they read the article (with some hallucinations, such as this being a newly-discovered species). Edit to add: Sibling comment has me questioning whether I'm a robot
    - berlinmarzahn 4y ago
      [dead]
    - 4y ago
kranke155 4y ago
Could be someone testing it out seeing if he can get away with it.
dang 4y ago
It's a spam ring and has been around for awhile. The new phenomenon is that some of these are leaking through. I probably need to adjust the anti-spam code.

Very strange indeed, first I've seen it, but they're all the same format and all new accounts.

Bots seem to be seasonal creatures. Some months you won't see any. And then some months you'll see four per submission. I'd just downvote and reconvene when it seems to be a substantial issue. As for GPT, the bots you usually see on HN are just as easily written by humans. GPT makes sense for scale, but it's not very interesting when bots are posting at such low volume, so it doesn't necessarily have to be the case nor does it really change anything.

doctoboggan 4y ago
I see 4 dead comments, but I suspect one of them is from a real human (derjanni)
- hackbert 4y ago
  I’ve seen a lot of new users today that were rage silenced, including obviously human ones.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Looking at their history I think they are related to the bots as they have a suspicious number of threads where the bots also chime in.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  They have submitted two "blog posts" from their own website whose insightlessness reeks of GPT, whose comments here are nothing but bots from brand new accounts. If there's a ring, they are the ringleader.
TeMPOraL 4y ago
Yeah, bots - sure. GPT? No way. My rapid-classification pattern matcher, honed on two decades of running blogs and web bulletin boards, recognizes the shape, cadence and sound of these comments as indicative of the usual kind of spam comment, common in the last 15+ years. I.e. they came out of some boring, old-school script. (Though I do wonder, how much of the spam comments on random, long-forgotten wordpress blogs, ended up in the GPT-{3,4} training data.)

slmjkdbtl 4y ago

[flagged]

jdthedisciple 4y ago
Thanks ChatGPT
- slmjkdbtl 4y ago
  You're welcome! We hope you enjoyed your experience using our model and we look forward to seeing more of what you can create in the future :) #ChatbotGeneration
  - rashkov 4y ago
    Your personal site (in your profile) is quite the work of art, brought me joy
    - slmjkdbtl 4y ago
      Thank you so much! And sorry for the trolling.

tysam_and 4y ago

They sorta read like those ride reviews from the theme park denizens of SimCoaster tbh.

LegitShady 4y ago

unfortunately this is the future of the entire internet - and not just the comments the submissions as well. the search for authenticity and actual human material will become the most valuable thing. This isn't that different from what we have now as people have abandoned corporate messaging for communities and podcasts/youtube/etc to try to find authentic human voices. The difference will be how much harder it will become to catch the bots.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hackbert 4y ago
And the tough part is new users being kicked out when someone thinks they’re a bot. How do we protect people from the bot witch-hunt?
- noizejoy 4y ago
  On the other hand if your human comment is indistinguishable from a bot comment, maybe it’s ok to be kicked out? Related: Reverse Turing Test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Turing_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Turing_test
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    It depends on the community. I think its ok for humans to not be perfect, sometimes. Meanwhile I have no interest in what ChatGPT thinks about anything.
- ghoogl 4y ago
  [dead]
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  You've hit a pet peeve of mine: The key feature of witch hunts as a concept is the non-existence of witches. If you have a hunt for something that certainly exists (Soviet spies infiltrating US institutions come to mind) it definitively isn't a witch-hunt. For my part, I'm going to keep downvoting comments that say nothing in the most bland way imaginable, and flagging anyone who posts "I put your question into ChatGPT; here's what it says" (in contexts other than discussions of chat bots).

skullone 4y ago

Do you have any examples before they were deleted? I wonder if I'd even recognize a fancy bot comment

csallen 4y ago
Turn on "showdead" in your HN account settings, and you can see deleted content.
InitialLastName 4y ago
At the moment it's a few brand new accounts posting essentially the same content-less statement that covers the big points in the headline {novelty, pollination, frog}. Example: That's amazing! It's incredible that we are still discovering new species, and that some of them can even have special abilities like pollinating. I'm looking forward to reading more about this frog.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  Kind of concerning that "hey that's pretty neat" comments are immediately suspected (probably accurately) of being bots. A comment like that example isn't useful to the other comment readers, but it's probably pretty motivating to the author, and it makes forums more positive places. Removing the organic versions of those will make forums a more negative place, and that's a shame.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    I'd be more accepting of a "hey that's pretty neat" comment if it didn't read like the equivalent of a middle schooler's attempt to restate the headline as if they read the article (with some hallucinations, such as this being a newly-discovered species). Edit to add: Sibling comment has me questioning whether I'm a robot
  - berlinmarzahn 4y ago
    [dead]
  - 4y ago

kranke155 4y ago

Could be someone testing it out seeing if he can get away with it.

dang 4y ago

It's a spam ring and has been around for awhile. The new phenomenon is that some of these are leaking through. I probably need to adjust the anti-spam code.