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I think this is an unfortunate misunderstanding of why people like and use social media. ChatGPT can already generate endless "comments". And yet you're here.

csomar 1y ago
> And yet you're here. Some people are talking to ChatGPT though. We are here, for now.
- Intralexical 1y ago
  Some people are stimulating themselves with opioids too. Outside the Hacker News bubble, which statistically has elevated incentives to push "the future is AI", the consensus I've seen is revulsion towards fully algorithmically generated content streams. This is like seeing Frito-Lay's stock price rise, and concluding that restaurants are doomed in the future. There's about the same amount of equivalence.
pphysch 1y ago
HN users that actively engage with comments are probably 0.0001% of overall social media users
esafak 1y ago
I agree with you, but the owners and customers of ad-supported communities like Facebook have an incentive to inject clickbait from fake users posing as humans. Facebook is already well along that road, with a captive if aging userbase. Maybe they'd flee if they had an alternative.
littlestymaar 1y ago
You must have missed a train or two over the past fifteen years, so called “social media” have very little to do with the social part they used to, they are mostly algorithmically driven dopamine shots to capture user's attention, and TikTok is the purest form of it.
throwaway290 1y ago
Most people on social media don't interact, just consume. You are talking to small self selected minority If there was an HN clone generated on the fly for you or the guy you replied to then what's the difference? Especially if you imagine you didn't know it was generated. That's the problem with this tech, for you there's no difference. But probably a difference for society.
Thaxll 1y ago
No one knows if you're a bot or a human.

csomar 1y ago

> And yet you're here. Some people are talking to ChatGPT though. We are here, for now.

Intralexical 1y ago
Some people are stimulating themselves with opioids too. Outside the Hacker News bubble, which statistically has elevated incentives to push "the future is AI", the consensus I've seen is revulsion towards fully algorithmically generated content streams. This is like seeing Frito-Lay's stock price rise, and concluding that restaurants are doomed in the future. There's about the same amount of equivalence.

pphysch 1y ago

HN users that actively engage with comments are probably 0.0001% of overall social media users

esafak 1y ago

I agree with you, but the owners and customers of ad-supported communities like Facebook have an incentive to inject clickbait from fake users posing as humans. Facebook is already well along that road, with a captive if aging userbase. Maybe they'd flee if they had an alternative.

littlestymaar 1y ago

You must have missed a train or two over the past fifteen years, so called “social media” have very little to do with the social part they used to, they are mostly algorithmically driven dopamine shots to capture user's attention, and TikTok is the purest form of it.

throwaway290 1y ago

Most people on social media don't interact, just consume. You are talking to small self selected minority If there was an HN clone generated on the fly for you or the guy you replied to then what's the difference? Especially if you imagine you didn't know it was generated. That's the problem with this tech, for you there's no difference. But probably a difference for society.

Thaxll 1y ago

No one knows if you're a bot or a human.