4 ms·

So that they can train a chatbot? I thought Elon set out to eliminate bots.

by zamalek 3y ago

djbusby 3y ago
You've become the very thing you swore to destroy!
HumblyTossed 3y ago
Did anyone actually believe him?
- serf 3y ago
  Elon has the superpower that makes it so that regardless of the question asked/answered, the audience is 40-40 "always believe" and "never believe", the rest being skeptics or 'don't cares'. This often works to his advantages; the 'always believe' are loud.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    The thing is that almost everyone believed him until it became known that many times he either: 1. didn't know what he was talking about 2. was over-optimistic about timelines to the point that there would be very little difference if it were a lie 3. objectively lied on purpose in order to further self interests 4. exaggerated or over-promised more than could be attributed to salesmanship 5. flip-flopped and refused to acknowledge the change in stance 6. stated things entirely to be vindictive, and let the truth of the statements be irrelevant The problem isn't that people 'never believe', the problem is 'whatever is said should be suspect to the point that if it is actually true then that is entirely a side-effect of the statement and not the point of it'.
    - brandonagr2 3y ago
      Everyone believed what? You seem to be unaware or Elon time or how Elon has made predictions in the past, generally not that "this will happen by date X" but that "this cannot possibly happen _before_ date X". Which are very different statements. There is a contingent of people who want to retcon any statement ever to paint Elon as a fraud, when reality is much too subtle for trivial blanket labels like you want to apply.
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      It's been obvious that he's inclined to talk nonsense for a _long, long_ time, tho. At this point, there are shades of him being E Lon Hubbard to the remaining believers; for most of them it seems totally unshakeable. (Humanity was extremely fortunate that the existence of L Ron Hubbard and the existence of the Internet did not significantly overlap.)
  - superhumanuser 3y ago
    My favorite time on Hacker News was reading all the quasi-fortune tellers and intellectuals say his $44B bid for Twitter was never going to go through, either through his withdrawal or being rejected by the board. They were so set in their hubris that the only debate was whether the SEC was going to sue him after the bid inevitably fell through.
    - bigbillheck 3y ago
      > either through his withdrawal Which, as I recall, he tried but the courts said 'no'.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      they were actually saying he would try to back out of it, which he did, and also that he would fail to do so, which he did
- lawn 3y ago
  Surprisingly, a lot of people did (and some still do). How many times have Trump been caught lying or doing a 180 from one day to the next? And there are still tons of people believing him.
candiddevmike 3y ago
Use it to heaven ban folks: https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/internet/heaven-banning/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/internet/heaven-bannin... CEO can use it on Elon to keep him placated
taneq 3y ago
Oh, that guy with the self-driving cars and the self-landing rockets and the creepy humanoid robots that can sorta walk? Yeah totally, he hates automated stuff.
nailer 3y ago
To eliminate spam bots. He didn't set out to eliminate AI. I'm honestly surprised that anyone on HN wouldn't understand this.
- ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
  It really is baffling. Removing bots from Twitter is totally orthogonal to training a bot on Twitter data- arguably the former is a prerequisite for the latter. And we've known that Musk wants to train a competing chatbot for at least 6 months now. Has he ever said anything to indicate that he wants to eliminate bots entirely? Maybe I'm overthinking it and this is just a rhetorical gotcha.
- comeonbro 3y ago
  Yeah, that this willfully stupid a comment is so high up on so important a topic is pretty damning of the value of the conversation here.
- thefurdrake 3y ago
  Ah yes, the platform formerly known as twitter shall surely NEVER allow the weights produced from analysis of its conversational data to go into the production of spambots! After all, there's definitely no market for a product that has been finely-trained on social media posts to the point where it can perfectly ape social media posts. There's no money for Twitter to make there, so the technology it produces from this analysis shall certainly never find its way into spam bots that create content indistinguishable from genuine humans on Twitter.
  - nailer 3y ago
    Cool theory but you have no supporting arguments.
lowercased 3y ago
other peoples' bots.
numpad0 3y ago
That guy had already smashed into the wall trying to get into the Internet, and not much relevant anymore. I mean, there's inertia, sure.

So that they can train a chatbot? I thought Elon set out to eliminate bots.

djbusby 3y ago

You've become the very thing you swore to destroy!

HumblyTossed 3y ago

Did anyone actually believe him?

serf 3y ago
Elon has the superpower that makes it so that regardless of the question asked/answered, the audience is 40-40 "always believe" and "never believe", the rest being skeptics or 'don't cares'. This often works to his advantages; the 'always believe' are loud.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  The thing is that almost everyone believed him until it became known that many times he either: 1. didn't know what he was talking about 2. was over-optimistic about timelines to the point that there would be very little difference if it were a lie 3. objectively lied on purpose in order to further self interests 4. exaggerated or over-promised more than could be attributed to salesmanship 5. flip-flopped and refused to acknowledge the change in stance 6. stated things entirely to be vindictive, and let the truth of the statements be irrelevant The problem isn't that people 'never believe', the problem is 'whatever is said should be suspect to the point that if it is actually true then that is entirely a side-effect of the statement and not the point of it'.
  - brandonagr2 3y ago
    Everyone believed what? You seem to be unaware or Elon time or how Elon has made predictions in the past, generally not that "this will happen by date X" but that "this cannot possibly happen _before_ date X". Which are very different statements. There is a contingent of people who want to retcon any statement ever to paint Elon as a fraud, when reality is much too subtle for trivial blanket labels like you want to apply.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    It's been obvious that he's inclined to talk nonsense for a _long, long_ time, tho. At this point, there are shades of him being E Lon Hubbard to the remaining believers; for most of them it seems totally unshakeable. (Humanity was extremely fortunate that the existence of L Ron Hubbard and the existence of the Internet did not significantly overlap.)
- superhumanuser 3y ago
  My favorite time on Hacker News was reading all the quasi-fortune tellers and intellectuals say his $44B bid for Twitter was never going to go through, either through his withdrawal or being rejected by the board. They were so set in their hubris that the only debate was whether the SEC was going to sue him after the bid inevitably fell through.
  - bigbillheck 3y ago
    > either through his withdrawal Which, as I recall, he tried but the courts said 'no'.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    they were actually saying he would try to back out of it, which he did, and also that he would fail to do so, which he did
lawn 3y ago
Surprisingly, a lot of people did (and some still do). How many times have Trump been caught lying or doing a 180 from one day to the next? And there are still tons of people believing him.

candiddevmike 3y ago

Use it to heaven ban folks: https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/internet/heaven-banning/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/internet/heaven-bannin... CEO can use it on Elon to keep him placated

taneq 3y ago

Oh, that guy with the self-driving cars and the self-landing rockets and the creepy humanoid robots that can sorta walk? Yeah totally, he hates automated stuff.

nailer 3y ago

To eliminate spam bots. He didn't set out to eliminate AI. I'm honestly surprised that anyone on HN wouldn't understand this.

ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
It really is baffling. Removing bots from Twitter is totally orthogonal to training a bot on Twitter data- arguably the former is a prerequisite for the latter. And we've known that Musk wants to train a competing chatbot for at least 6 months now. Has he ever said anything to indicate that he wants to eliminate bots entirely? Maybe I'm overthinking it and this is just a rhetorical gotcha.
comeonbro 3y ago
Yeah, that this willfully stupid a comment is so high up on so important a topic is pretty damning of the value of the conversation here.
thefurdrake 3y ago
Ah yes, the platform formerly known as twitter shall surely NEVER allow the weights produced from analysis of its conversational data to go into the production of spambots! After all, there's definitely no market for a product that has been finely-trained on social media posts to the point where it can perfectly ape social media posts. There's no money for Twitter to make there, so the technology it produces from this analysis shall certainly never find its way into spam bots that create content indistinguishable from genuine humans on Twitter.
- nailer 3y ago
  Cool theory but you have no supporting arguments.

lowercased 3y ago

other peoples' bots.

numpad0 3y ago

That guy had already smashed into the wall trying to get into the Internet, and not much relevant anymore. I mean, there's inertia, sure.