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Researchers mined Erowid and fed the entries to an AI
- rideontime 3y agoWill Erowid and/or its users be at all compensated for providing the data for this?
- redavni 3y agoResearch is very clearly covered under fair use.
- 0xcde4c3db 3y agoResearch falls under "purpose and character of the use", which is only one of the four factors considered in fair use analysis. I gather a court could decide that this outweighs the other factors, but I doubt that can safely be taken for granted as a general rule.
- rideontime 3y agoEven when you do it to develop a commercial product?
- ShamelessC 3y agoDid you ever use the site? It was like a handshake agreement situation where you had no idea how full of shit the posts were. If people weren't outright lying, they could (very well) be experiencing wish fulfillment or placebo. Many of the "negative" experiences were similar - describing reactions that were frankly hard to believe. Posts tended towards fictional exaggeration. Further, many users were anonymous, pseudonymous, lying about identity, or posting in a time when many believed no one would be probing through the internet trying to identify folks. tl;dr - I seriously doubt any of the users wants to be identified, much less compensated for providing "data".
- morkalork 3y agoThe trip reports for datura are legendary for their outlandishness. On point though, many of the chemicals in question aren't legal so not sure how much users would want to be identified..
- deleriousmuffin 3y agoIf you had actually ever tried datura, there's no way you'd be so dismissive of people's reports of using it as being "outlandish".
- plussed_reader 3y agoYes, no true scotsman would dismiss a datura trip report.
- sleepybrett 3y agostrong agree
- lightedman 3y agoDatura is absolutely outlandish, though. I'm a very experienced psychonaut and even I won't dare touch that stuff. One of my friends did and just watching him on it made me never, EVER want to do it.
- rideontime 3y agoThat's been my experience with the site, too, which made me raise my eyebrow at the article's claim of "first-hand testimonials that have been vetted for authenticity and accuracy." If the data's such junk (which I surely won't argue with), why study it? e: From the original paper: > Rigorous quality control is conducted by trained experts with careful consideration given to “quality, credibility, and focus on effects or outcomes” (www.erowid.org). By means of that mechanism, all reports that provided the basis for the present investigation have successfully exceeded a standard quality filter. Totally.
- 3y ago
- brandall10 3y agoAs someone who contributed to the site many years ago, I am more than happy for my experiences to be used in this fashion.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoI second this.
- cypherpunks01 3y ago"All information on Erowid.org is provided non-commercially for purposes of teaching, scholarship, research, and criticism." The point of the website is to collect information about drugs for education and research purposes. It's a 501c3 nonprofit, which operates explicitly for public education. It's funded by donors, not by consumers of the info collected.
- gumballindie 3y agoHm odd, none of these seem to include ai “training”. It allows for human teaching but that’s far from ingesting data in a token database.
- qwerty456127 3y agoThey will get a reputation bonus.
- tmpX7dMeXU 3y agoThankfully, outside of Hacker News, and particularly on Erowid, there is not as high a frequency of the “where’s MY payday” mindset. This is just American / Silicon Valley brain rot.
- gumballindie 3y agoBut then why do we have to pay for accessing ai content? Can we download the models openai and others made using people’s work?
- qwerty456127 3y agoWhy just Erowid and not the Psychonaut Wiki?
- flenserboy 3y agoLet's hope that lots of old forums in other areas of interest (programming, engineering, etc.) are preserved so that the same sort of work can be done. A current forum which would be most interesting to see results from would be the Ray Peat Forum, for better or for worse.
- dylan604 3y agoWhat happens if we go back too far in the forums and the AI starts suggesting the use of leeches and the letting of blood?
- flenserboy 3y agoWhat happens if we find out some dismissed cures/methods actually have value? That could really upend things.
- dylan604 3y agoif it was useful, bigPharma would provide it for us! /s to an extent, I understand the concept of studying the old plant remedies for what is actually useful from the plant and which remedies really do not harm but do no actual good either. dosing is important and using raw plants makes that really hard. creating clean extracts of known qualities makes a helluva lot of sense. i just think bigPharma took the concept too far.
- mewpmewp2 3y agoIt seems likely that things with no possible way to make decent profit out of them wouldn't have much research interest in them. Of course it doesn't mean that any such thing is useful, but it definitely makes effects of something unclear and difficult to actually prove or disprove.
- Ovah 3y agoIronically leeches are used to this day. At the most specialized hospital in Sweden they are sometimes used to treat wounds that have a hard time healing. IIRC they somehow promote revascularizing of the tissue.
- visarga 3y agoI was sure it was going to be Erowid.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- IAmGraydon 3y agoThe headline made me think either Erowid or The Hive until I read a bit more and Erowid made more sense. I had forgotten how much I missed reading through and contributing to Erowid many years ago.
- droopyEyelids 3y agoI saw some discussion around the flaws of mri imaging to study cognitive states. If i recall correctly, something like 70% of people fall asleep in the MRI so theres no baseline brain state to compare.
- ProjectArcturis 3y agoI did fMRI research for 12 years. You are not recalling correctly.
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoHow in the world could anyone fall asleep in a machine that loud and weird-sounding? To whit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvXoHU9Cexk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvXoHU9Cexk
- sva_ 3y agoA lot of the comments report they either fell asleep or almost did so.
- NegativeK 3y agoIt's loud, but the tech gave me ear pro. And it's fucking boring in there.
- rubyfan 3y agoI’ve had several and almost always fall asleep. It’s always dark in the room and you’re laying down.
- rescbr 3y agoI dream of electric sheep when I'm doing MRIs. Nah, I'm kidding, there's no way I can sleep inside a MRI machine. I just think of dancing electrons going through my body. I also think it is an extreme version of dubstep.
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoThe breakdown in Greenways Trajectory by Squarepusherm one of my favorite pieces of music, is reminiscent of an MRI machine.
- cypherpunks01 3y agoErowid is a member-supported organization providing access to reliable, non-judgmental information about psychoactive plants, chemicals, and related issues. (from mission statement) Anyone who has benefited from Erowid's psychoactive drug info should consider donating! https://erowid.org/donations/ https://erowid.org/donations/
- hackernewds 3y agoWhy Donate to Erowid Center? The issues surrounding psychoactive drugs are complex. Prohibition discourages the spread of accurate information in favor of "Just Say No" rhetoric. But prohibition has failed and we need to move on to education. Information sources need to prioritize accuracy rather than maintaining politically driven anti-drug messages. Erowid provides free, balanced, reliable information about psychoactive plants and drugs. We don't convince users to abstain or legislators to pass particular laws. We provide the information necessary for people to make their own rational choices.
- beefman 3y agoErowid is great, but the trip reports were universally fanciful, typically having no discernible connection to the drug (often drugs) being described. They became a literary form of their own, and something of an inside joke among psychedelics users. The general idea of training LLMs on forum archives seems promising though!
- webel0 3y agoHmm, it appears that they relied on the quality control of forum moderators but didn’t do any of their own QC? From the methods section: > The database of drug narratives from Erowid’s “experience vault” is entirely anonymous. Rigorous quality control is conducted by trained experts with careful consideration given to “quality, credibility, and focus on effects or outcomes” (www.erowid.org). By means of that mechanism, all reports that provided the basis for the present investigation have successfully exceeded a standard quality filter.
- Alex3917 3y ago> Erowid is great, but the trip reports were universally fanciful IIRC they have moderators vet them and only a relatively small percentage get published. The founders and staff actually take their mission statement seriously.
- loeg 3y agoYeah, a friend of mine used to moderate these posts.
- stavros 3y agoI was just playing a board game with a friend, and we spent a while looking through the (fairly complicated) rules. At some point, I had the bright idea to feed the manual to Claude, so we could ask questions about it. It all went great, Claude even gave references, until it hallucinated an innocuous but significantly game-breaking rule ("rest lets you heal one health for two stamina"). This just reinforced my lack of trust in LLMs, and I would sure as hell not ask an LLM what drugs were safe or not.
- ogogmad 3y agoTangential, but people interested in trying psychedelics should read about HPPD: Hallucinogen-(Induced) Persisting Perception Disorder. It is a potentially debilitating and long-lasting side effect of using hallucinogenic drugs which can cause changes to your vision, or depersonalisation/derealisation disorder at the extreme end. It may increase your side effects from using psychiatric medications in the future. It is often caused by using LSD for the first time. Drug mixing makes it more likely to happen. Personally, I'm avoiding psychedelics so that I don't get it. [Edit] The downvoters are shameless and reckless, and potentially responsible for ruining lives. Stop acting like a cult.
- Loughla 3y agoI cannot be convinced that's a common thing. Here's my pro-hallucinogen argument: if you have persistent, treatment resistant anxiety, there is nothing even close to a heroic dose of your favorite hallucinogen to kill your ego and let you see through the bullshit in your life. You'll have a pretty bad time during the trip, but the clarity it provides is life changing.
- ogogmad 3y agoAnxiety disorders are highly correlated with serious HPPD. I'm afraid to say that I'm not sure this is responsible advice, given the possible risk. It would nice to get more data about HPPD to understand its prevalence and risk factors. [edit] I would agree that hallucinogens might be a good mind medicine, but they should be likened to medications or surgeries when it comes to risk.
- hluska 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoYikes - your account has unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines a ton lately. This is just a smattering: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37759686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37759686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37759632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37759632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37384354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37384354 (Sept 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37366060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37366060 (Sept 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36374465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36374465 (June 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36348101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36348101 (June 2023) We have to ban accounts that post this aggressively and/or abrasively, and we have had to ask you about this more than once before. That's not ok. I don't want to ban you, but we need this to stop. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site to heart, we'd be grateful. That means curious, respectful conversation without snark, swipes, or putdowns, for starters.
- jrflowers 3y agoI hope that they do Bluelight next.
- mewpmewp2 3y agoAs SWIM is an AI language model, they have to warn you that they can't experience effects of those substances in the same way that a human can.
- Scoundreller 3y agoEveryone, I just happened to see this random piece of paper flying around in the wind. I caught it and it said the silliest thing, so I felt like sharing it here: "I dig the cocaine and it was awwwwwesome!"
- schneems 3y agoSo erowid recruiter?
- spacecadet 3y agoFunny, I live on Pioneer st in Red Hook...
- emsign 3y ago> Venture capitalists are pouring millions of dollars into new psychedelic-based antidepressants that move beyond the classic SSRI model, but without a precise index of the neural processes at work, pharmaceutical patents are unlikely to be approved. Oh I see! THAT'S what they are REALLY doing. One more reason to sanitize the web of old posts. Doesn't even matter if those stories the LLM is being trained on are actually useful and valid, if they are just enough to persuade some board member to grant a patent on a molecule that others have discovered long before the patent troll.
- iamnotsure 3y agoWhat if all our trip were really computational steps of a future AI?
- mbgerring 3y agoErowid Recruiter did it better
- sensanaty 3y agoWhen it comes to something like drugs, there's no chance in hell I'm trusting what an AI is hallucinating (heh) back at me. If you're looking for reliable information and trying to practice harm reduction, why on earth would you turn to an AI which famously makes shit up all the time?