5 ms·

I spent an evening on a fictitious web

74 points by kinlan 2y ago

GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
No more dead links, instead Chrome will instead hallucinate what that website should have looked like.
- nxobject 2y ago
  Thought experiment: think of a potential usecase (perhaps offline) where some smart-aleck product manager thinks this might be useful.
  - GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
    Come to think of it, I'm kind of surprised that Google Chrome doesn't have a "this link is broken, would you like to see what we have cached for this url?" feature.
    - nxobject 2y ago
      Or – some day when this runs on-device – a "smart preload" feature from Google Chrome. On slow connections, hallucinate a wireframe of a heavy website until it loads.
      - gryfft 2y ago
        Resulting in web elements bouncing around and changing wholesale as the site loads? Hitting the wrong button as some UI element loads late is already a painful UX stubbed toe as it is.
    - gryfft 2y ago
      Google Cache used to be so useful. But they've left that all to the Internet Archive now. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/google-search-kills-off-cached-webpages/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/google-search-kills-...
- GJim 2y ago
  > Chrome will instead hallucinate what that website should have looked like I find the term 'bullshits' to be more apt than 'hallucinate'. As something of an aside; that the purveyors of AI use the latter, whereas those who interact with it use the former, speaks volumes.
  - sva_ 2y ago
    I find the term 'bullshitting' less fitting as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way that attributes agency to them which they seem to lack. As in, someone who bullshits presumably does this for some personal gain, which doesn't seem like something an LLM is capable of atm. It might (currently) be most apt to characterize these occurrences as shifts out of the training data distribution
    - djeastm 2y ago
      >as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way "hallucinate" does the same thing, fwiw
      - krapp 2y ago
        It seems impossible to come up with language to describe why LLMs are both convincing and unreliable ("hallucinate","confabulate","bullshit) or why the ability to converse in natural language does not denote intelligent cognition ("stochastic parrot") without anthropomorphizing them to a degree, given that these things are designed to anthropomorphize themselves.
        burner_fyllms 2y ago
        Yes true but saying "displaying the inherent flaws in the design that make them unsuitable for serious purposes" every time gets tedious.
      - vundercind 2y ago
        “Hallucinate” connotes consciousness and self to me. Bullshit does not. Markov chain text generators bullshit, they don’t hallucinate. I’m not aware of anything in LLM tech that warrants implying any sort of awareness, understanding, or consciousness. Not even close.
- kinlan 2y ago
  It's not Chrome hallucinating, it's the websim that is generating the content.
  - rng-concern 2y ago
    I think they mean a hypothetical future of chrome browser, not what websim currently is.
latexr 2y ago
I went to the website, clicked on the search bar, and was immediately stopped from proceeding unless I provided a Google login. Why is that necessary? No idea, they don’t say. Doesn’t seem like a “web” I’d want to partake in, with Google as a gatekeeper even if they’re not the authors of the content.
- GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
  They're just using Google for an easy user onboarding, nothing to get all up in arms about. Websim is trying to sell plans for more than 30 generations a day.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    Makes a little sense to show a "register with Google" button, but clicking the main UI element and being redirected to a Google sign-in screen is bad form. Also weird that apparently you can sign in via Discord, but you can only sign up via Google?
    - GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
      Not sure, maybe it's some growth hacking trick I'm not aware of.
- sva_ 2y ago
  Websim utilizes LLM to generate a fictional website based on a domain name you provide, and displays the result in their virtual browser. LLM generations are quite costly so it is difficult to provide them without some kind of anti abuse strategies in place, so I think that's fair.
  - tomcam 2y ago
    Thank you. I had no idea what TFA was trying to get across
- ThinkingGuy 2y ago
lewispollard 2y ago
So the purpose of the website wasn't clear to you, you then figured it out, decided to write an article about it, but didn't explain to the reader what the website actually is?
- kinlan 2y ago
  That's a fair point. I chose more so to document the experience and how I felt.... I can update the article if that helps.
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  Well, if you review a movie you try not to spoil by explaining its plot?
superultra 2y ago
This is interesting but if you’re genuinely interested in recapturing the feelings many of us had at the beginning of the web, I would suggest playing Hypnospace Outlaw. It’s of course quite different than websim but it’s really fun.
- csixty4 2y ago
  I just watched a Youtube video of it and I DEFINITELY need to check this out. They seem to have captured the feel of the old web perfectly.
  - crtasm 2y ago
    It's a fantastic game. Just noticing now they added mod support so will be trying that later! https://jay-tholen.itch.io/hypnospace-outlaw/devlog/111175/hypnospace-modding-update https://jay-tholen.itch.io/hypnospace-outlaw/devlog/111175/h...
- autokad 2y ago
  I struggle with the idea of monetization. In one sense, I think its great people can get paid for doing what they like to do and it can encourage more content creation. On the other hand, everything becomes disingenuous, people become perversely incentivized, you got people gluing things to turtles to make videos of them rescuing turtles with 'lichens' on their shells. So I don't know, I am really torn on how I should feel about it
teg4n_ 2y ago
I wonder why they aren’t straightforward that this is just ai generating websites based on a url prompt? It seems like they go out of their way to not say AI.
jschveibinz 2y ago
You know, there a lot of negative comments here but I found this post to be enlightening, so thank you. This YT video explains how this simulation could be useful to the startup community: https://youtu.be/pdWS-ZJ3K8Y?feature=shared https://youtu.be/pdWS-ZJ3K8Y?feature=shared

74 points by kinlan 2y ago

GaryNumanVevo 2y ago

No more dead links, instead Chrome will instead hallucinate what that website should have looked like.

nxobject 2y ago
Thought experiment: think of a potential usecase (perhaps offline) where some smart-aleck product manager thinks this might be useful.
- GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
  Come to think of it, I'm kind of surprised that Google Chrome doesn't have a "this link is broken, would you like to see what we have cached for this url?" feature.
  - nxobject 2y ago
    Or – some day when this runs on-device – a "smart preload" feature from Google Chrome. On slow connections, hallucinate a wireframe of a heavy website until it loads.
    - gryfft 2y ago
      Resulting in web elements bouncing around and changing wholesale as the site loads? Hitting the wrong button as some UI element loads late is already a painful UX stubbed toe as it is.
  - gryfft 2y ago
    Google Cache used to be so useful. But they've left that all to the Internet Archive now. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/google-search-kills-off-cached-webpages/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/google-search-kills-...
GJim 2y ago
> Chrome will instead hallucinate what that website should have looked like I find the term 'bullshits' to be more apt than 'hallucinate'. As something of an aside; that the purveyors of AI use the latter, whereas those who interact with it use the former, speaks volumes.
- sva_ 2y ago
  I find the term 'bullshitting' less fitting as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way that attributes agency to them which they seem to lack. As in, someone who bullshits presumably does this for some personal gain, which doesn't seem like something an LLM is capable of atm. It might (currently) be most apt to characterize these occurrences as shifts out of the training data distribution
  - djeastm 2y ago
    >as it seems to anthropomorphize LLM in a way "hallucinate" does the same thing, fwiw
    - krapp 2y ago
      It seems impossible to come up with language to describe why LLMs are both convincing and unreliable ("hallucinate","confabulate","bullshit) or why the ability to converse in natural language does not denote intelligent cognition ("stochastic parrot") without anthropomorphizing them to a degree, given that these things are designed to anthropomorphize themselves.
      - burner_fyllms 2y ago
        Yes true but saying "displaying the inherent flaws in the design that make them unsuitable for serious purposes" every time gets tedious.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      “Hallucinate” connotes consciousness and self to me. Bullshit does not. Markov chain text generators bullshit, they don’t hallucinate. I’m not aware of anything in LLM tech that warrants implying any sort of awareness, understanding, or consciousness. Not even close.
kinlan 2y ago
It's not Chrome hallucinating, it's the websim that is generating the content.
- rng-concern 2y ago
  I think they mean a hypothetical future of chrome browser, not what websim currently is.

latexr 2y ago

I went to the website, clicked on the search bar, and was immediately stopped from proceeding unless I provided a Google login. Why is that necessary? No idea, they don’t say. Doesn’t seem like a “web” I’d want to partake in, with Google as a gatekeeper even if they’re not the authors of the content.

GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
They're just using Google for an easy user onboarding, nothing to get all up in arms about. Websim is trying to sell plans for more than 30 generations a day.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  Makes a little sense to show a "register with Google" button, but clicking the main UI element and being redirected to a Google sign-in screen is bad form. Also weird that apparently you can sign in via Discord, but you can only sign up via Google?
  - GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
    Not sure, maybe it's some growth hacking trick I'm not aware of.
sva_ 2y ago
Websim utilizes LLM to generate a fictional website based on a domain name you provide, and displays the result in their virtual browser. LLM generations are quite costly so it is difficult to provide them without some kind of anti abuse strategies in place, so I think that's fair.
- tomcam 2y ago
  Thank you. I had no idea what TFA was trying to get across
ThinkingGuy 2y ago

lewispollard 2y ago

So the purpose of the website wasn't clear to you, you then figured it out, decided to write an article about it, but didn't explain to the reader what the website actually is?

kinlan 2y ago
That's a fair point. I chose more so to document the experience and how I felt.... I can update the article if that helps.
nuancebydefault 2y ago
Well, if you review a movie you try not to spoil by explaining its plot?

superultra 2y ago

This is interesting but if you’re genuinely interested in recapturing the feelings many of us had at the beginning of the web, I would suggest playing Hypnospace Outlaw. It’s of course quite different than websim but it’s really fun.

csixty4 2y ago
I just watched a Youtube video of it and I DEFINITELY need to check this out. They seem to have captured the feel of the old web perfectly.
- crtasm 2y ago
  It's a fantastic game. Just noticing now they added mod support so will be trying that later! https://jay-tholen.itch.io/hypnospace-outlaw/devlog/111175/hypnospace-modding-update https://jay-tholen.itch.io/hypnospace-outlaw/devlog/111175/h...
autokad 2y ago
I struggle with the idea of monetization. In one sense, I think its great people can get paid for doing what they like to do and it can encourage more content creation. On the other hand, everything becomes disingenuous, people become perversely incentivized, you got people gluing things to turtles to make videos of them rescuing turtles with 'lichens' on their shells. So I don't know, I am really torn on how I should feel about it

teg4n_ 2y ago

I wonder why they aren’t straightforward that this is just ai generating websites based on a url prompt? It seems like they go out of their way to not say AI.

jschveibinz 2y ago

You know, there a lot of negative comments here but I found this post to be enlightening, so thank you. This YT video explains how this simulation could be useful to the startup community: https://youtu.be/pdWS-ZJ3K8Y?feature=shared https://youtu.be/pdWS-ZJ3K8Y?feature=shared