4 ms·

Advice and information subreddits have gone to shit because of AI usage. A large number of people seem to think that when someone asks a question, what they rea

Advice and information subreddits have gone to shit because of AI usage. A large number of people seem to think that when someone asks a question, what they really want is not someone with direct knowledge, but instead someone to relay the question to ChatGPT and post the result as if it is their own hard earned knowledge and insight. I have no idea about the quality of this research but in the real world (well, real-ish, as real as Reddit can be) it is stark, people aren’t just refusing to say “I don’t know” they’re actively seeking out opportunities to pretend they know things.

darkstarsys 3mo ago
Exactly the same thing happened when Google appeared on the scene. (Not that this makes it any better!)
- skippyfish 3mo ago
  Sort of, but I think this was a mix of "I want to sound smart" and "I actually want to know the answer", because summarizing Google search results still required you to read the content, form an opinion, and then rephrase it. With AI, people literally just act as token proxies and are doing it purely for internet points (upvotes, followers, etc)... I guess on some level, they're just providing a service that the "market" implicitly values. But also, in Bob Slydell's voice: "what would you say you do here?"
wccrawford 3mo ago
I think some may think they're helping like that, but I'm sure there are quite a few who enjoy the feeling of being a notable figure in the community because they answer so many questions. These people have always existed and gave bad answers, but now they can do it so much faster, and with so much less actual thinking.
- ffaccount2 3mo ago
  I did that when I was younger and internet forums we're still a thing. The difference is that I had to do actual research, which often took me half an hour or more, to solve the problem for the asker. I got knowledge and "the feeling of being a notable figure" as you have said. The other side for the answer. I believe my answers were good. The difference is that nowadays people can just skip the research part and copy-paste Llama. No value added.
  - dylan604 3mo ago
    >The difference is that nowadays people can just skip the research part and copy-paste Llama. No value added. and why would the person doing that do that? if the person asking the question wanted to know what an llm thought, wouldn't they have just asked the llm for an instant response instead of having to wait for someone else to respond? i'm at a total loss of being able to understand the point. it's obviously different if the response is a bot posting just in case that needs to be explained to a bot.
- antisthenes 3mo ago
  Do you consider the possibility that some of those people gave good answers?
  - wccrawford 3mo ago
    Oh, there were absolutely people giving good answers. I'm just talking about the same kind of person who now just posts what an LLM says, rather than do any research.
jayd16 3mo ago
We had to officially set the culture in the work slack. If you're just piping through raw AI response without any input of your own, you're being rude. It goes a long way.
- tayo42 3mo ago
  Like you just have a pinned message or something? How did people respond to that?
adamddev1 3mo ago
And then the AI gets trained on the advice and information subreddits, and we see an exponential growth downwards in quality?
- tripleee 3mo ago
  Isn't AI getting more accurate over time though, as per benchmarks?
  - crooked-v 3mo ago
    Yes, but that's with mostly the same data as before, just with more of the preexisting dataset and more RLHF. We haven't seen the ouroborous eat itself yet.
  - sandeepkd 3mo ago
    > as per benchmarks That seems to be the key and its risky when the measure becomes the target itself. When you already know the benchmarks, and that drives the definition of success outcome then there is every incentive to just chase them
parl_match 3mo ago
responding "if you can't be bothered to write it, I can't be bothered to read it" really sets people off. they get very mad and ive had some even use ai to tell me why that's wrong. what differentiates you? you could tell me "type xyz into chatgpt" or even share a structured document link from their site. but when you're copy/pasting, then you're basically useless in the equation.
- an0malous 3mo ago
  > responding "if you can't be bothered to write it, I can't be bothered to read it" really sets people off That’s crazy, it seems like such an obviously fair policy to me. They rarely even read their own generated text. I don’t understand this mentality
  - mapontosevenths 3mo ago
    Another human being took time from their life to try and help you It wasn't as much time as you felt entitled to from them, so you responded by minimizing their contribution and being condescending. That upset them. The problem here was not the other person.
    - kaashif 3mo ago
      Someone is drowning and calls for help. I throw a bucket of chum into the water and walk away, putting my headphones on. Well I did take the time to help, better than nothing, right?
    - pebble 3mo ago
      Sometimes a well-meaning fool is worse than no help at all.
      - mapontosevenths 3mo ago
        That doesnt excuse you from the obligation to be civil. Especially given that the other party was trying to help.
hinkley 3mo ago
There are some people I'm not friends with anymore who didn't understand conversational bidding. They would jump straight to Why Don't You Google That and shut down any conversation we might have had. Yes I could get some of this information off of IMDB or a DIY video but I'm looking for color commentary and regional advice, and also in some of these situations, the people I asked know me. They know the sorts of things I don't need help on and the ones I struggle with. So maybe they can tell me this movie or trick isn't for me and I should try this other thing instead. Or which store I should go to for this.
- sublinear 3mo ago
  I do agree that most LMGTFY was obnoxious, and I'm not defending that. At the same time, we have historically seen a lot of "conversational bidding" lead to low quality shitposting at best. At worst, we see wildly out of touch echo chambers fueled by bots, guerilla marketing, and political agendas. You did solve your problem by seeking higher quality people to talk to. I'm just saying there is more to rejection than the other party "not understanding". In the context of work chat or certain events, I could understand a LMGTFY response as steering conversation out of the mud and saving everyone the headache. It also helps you, the recipient of that response, save face. They're the ones looking like an asshole while you get another chance to try somewhere else. I've met some of the most sociable people upon realizing their usage of these "jiu-jitsu moves" were not meant to be hostile.
- mapontosevenths 3mo ago
  > There are some people I'm not friends with anymore who didn't understand conversational bidding. To you the "bid" feels like a genuine attempt to connect, that may be a bit indirect. To some people it feels more like you are being disingenuous or awkward. They instinctively feel that your intent doesnt match your words and it sets off alarms bells. The fact that you're on the internet judging the other party negatively for having a different communication style is an indicator of which party was least willing to adapt.
  - hinkley 3mo ago
    And you're going to right that wrong by making assumptions. It's usually not the person who gets asked who acts like an asshole, and if you don't don't want to be judged by people for your behavior, start by not openly and loudly judging them for theirs. No sympathy for this sort of behavior and you're out of line. Or you're the problem. I'll let you decide since I don't know you.
lazzlazzlazz 3mo ago
The advice subreddits were absolutely horrible before AI. The entire 2016-2024 period was utter madness there, likely as a result of globalization. As AI gets smarter, it may make the comments better, sadly!
- doubled112 3mo ago
  Maybe, but isn't it likely the models are being trained on those same subreddits?
  - fwip 3mo ago
    They are, and they'll also see a random reddit comment in their web search and treat it as fact.
dataflow 3mo ago
You mean like this? https://xkcd.com/903/ https://xkcd.com/903/
code_biologist 3mo ago
Writing and videos produced before 2022 are the information equivalent of low-background steel (steel produced before the atom bomb era). Not all are precious, but they are important. AI influences are so pervasive at this point, even in informational writing from domain experts. Relentless grounding is my personal solution for my AI epistemic crisis, but it's an expensive solution in terms of time and effort, and triage is hard too.
- nomel 3mo ago
  What is "grounding"?
  - papercrane 3mo ago
    It's when the models outputs are connected to sources. So for example, you might have a company chatbot that responds with a summary of a Confluence page it was trained on and a link to the source. Doesn't eliminate hallucinations, but it does reduce them and gives you a chance to verify.
    - stingraycharles 3mo ago
      I don’t think this is correct, as we’re talking about all online discourse being influenced by AI, and you don’t know what to trust anymore, rather than generating AI output yourself (which is what you are referring to).
      - papercrane 3mo ago
        In this context, it would mean building a knowledge base the model can link to that is considered authoritative. So maybe the LLM is has some slop in it's training, and that causes it to try and output some junk, but if it can't match it to it's verified ground-truth KB it doesn't end up outputting it. The problem is figuring out what is the authoritative sources.
        3mo ago
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
ls-a 3mo ago
[flagged]
- JoshTriplett 3mo ago
  The pro AI wave needs to stop. It's obnoxious. Stop pushing it on people. If people want it, they'll seek it out. And, unfortunately, they'll then inflict it on the people around them.
  - metaltea 3mo ago
    [dead]
  - ls-a 3mo ago
    Same applies before AI. Things that people didn't want have been pushed down their throat all the time. Stop falsifying the truth
- roncesvalles 3mo ago
  Your comment has nothing to do with the comment you replied to. I almost suspect it's satire.
- apical_dendrite 3mo ago
  As long as the leadership of AI companies and the prominent AI researchers are talking about P(doom) and eliminating 50% of white collar jobs, there will be a backlash. As long as the leadership of corporate America is using AI usage in performance metrics and shoving AI into every single product regardless of whether it actually helps the product, there will be a backlash. If you tell people that there's a technology that's going to change every aspect of their lives whether they like it or not (and has a non-zero chance of ending humanity entirely) and you want to throw all available resources into building this technology as fast as possible, do not be surprised if people start instinctively cringing every time your technology is mentioned. If Altman, Musk, Zuckerberg, Amodei, or any of these other people had been half as smart as Steve Jobs, they would have adopted his worldview of computing as a "bicycle for the mind" that enhances rather than replaces humans.
- 3mo ago
Aurornis 3mo ago
> Advice and information subreddits have gone to shit because of AI usage. Most of the advice and information subreddits I previously visited collapsed into bad posting even before AI. The few I still follow are oddly fine. The key was always having an active moderator who cared and had unbelievable amounts of time to moderate. Once the subreddit gets past a critical mass of junk-posting users, the good users leave and there's no coming back.
- cucumber3732842 3mo ago
  >The key was always having an active moderator who cared and had unbelievable amounts of time to moderate. Sometimes the mods are the junk posting users. A bunch of the car subs were modded for a long time by some tow truck driver who'd mod them while sitting around waiting for dispatch. Exactly the kind of guy you want refereeing a dispute between some guy who's lived it and a bunch of lube techs who are quoting textbook best practices.
- nhan123 3mo ago
  Completely agree. A community lives or dies by its moderators. Once the limit drops past a certain point, the experts just quietly leave.
godwinson__4-8 3mo ago
Why limit this critique to one side of the reddit marketplace. If more and more answers are AI authored, it stands to reason more and more questions are as well.
cucumber3732842 3mo ago
> Advice and information subreddits have gone to shit because of AI usage >but instead someone to relay the question to ChatGPT and post the result as if it is their own hard earned knowledge and insight. >people aren’t just refusing to say “I don’t know” they’re actively seeking out opportunities to pretend they know things. What? This is a joke right? Advice and information subreddits have been shallow blind leading blind crap like that and have been for at least a decade. The vote mechanism plus local culture rewards shallow "teennager just googled it" type responses (that AI is basically replacing here) that even people who don't know anything can agree on and punishes nuance and serious understanding. Eventually the people who know their shit make a joke subreddit (which is inherently exclusive because you can't joke about something without knowing about it) and then at some point later people figure out that's where all the smart people are, start asking questions there instead and then it goes to shit in the same way. AI is absolutely a lateral move here.
gherkinnn 3mo ago
It gets better. Kagi search summary likes "people also say..." and then refers to a random LLM reddit thread.
glitchc 3mo ago
When there's weakness in not knowing, it's no surprise. How many of us work in a corporate environment where pretending to know is better than being honest about not knowing?
Madmallard 3mo ago
Reddit has been trash for a very long time. But you know it's worse, because you get punished for criticizing AI comments on those subreddits.
functionmouse 3mo ago
And let's not forget that the bots doing most of the upvoting and downvoting are more likely to upvote bot comments, driving the algorithm. The internet as a public forum is dead. And given the purpose of something is what it does, this is the true goal of AI. I'm certain blowing up the internet benefits very many wealthy and powerful people.
danpalmer 3mo ago
I have seen that many times here on HN: "I don't know but I stuck this in CrapGPT and this is what it said...". I would encourage anyone considering a reply like this to ask themselves what value they have brought to the table over the OP using AI themselves.
- wolvoleo 3mo ago
  Yeah as if someone wouldn't have done that if they wanted to. Some people still think AI is some novelty people don't know about.
  - danpalmer 3mo ago
    This did happen before, and still does to some extent, with people googling and giving the answer. "Let me Google that for you" lmgtfy.com was even a thing, again lacking any introspection about why someone might be asking instead of googling.
    - wolvoleo 3mo ago
      I don't know why you were deadvoted, it's a good point. Though I feel that especially in the latest decade Google was a terrible source for finding things like the best product for usecase xyz and other recommendations. Because not only was the internet full of SEO clickbait fake comparison sites, but Google promoted the fake ones because they paid for it. They deeply undermined their own credibility. It was pretty much impossible to find real info with all the fake clickbait stuff around. Not to mention that even legit news outlets do a lot of paid "advertorials" these days. I'm sure this will happen with AI too but with stuff like deep research I feel like I get better answers than Google has given me for years. Despite hallucination.
annzabelle 3mo ago
Reddit has always had the dynamic of people misrepresenting their knowledge and just repeating what other people said on that subreddit. I find myself doing that when I spend too long on there - posting very authoritatively on something I'm honestly clueless about. One big pet peeve of mine on reddit is on any kind of immigration-related subreddit it is absolutely filled with people talking about how it's impossible to migrate and you'll never get a visa. Yet, meanwhile, people do migrate successfully and legally all the time.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
m463 3mo ago
I remember reading a travel thing a long time ago (before gps was a thing). They cautioned that in some cultures, if you asked for directions, people would rather be polite/helpful and give you an answer rather than saying "I don't know" and giving you no answer. (They recommended that you ask more than one person to be more certain you were getting good directions) In other cultures they were more likely to say "I don't know" at the cost of seeming more impolite. So, we don't know the intent. :)
protocolture 3mo ago
I had to exit the major Home Assistant facey groups due to this behavior. That and all the stupid questions.
rsoto2 3mo ago
I mean that's this entire thread in a nutshell. Armchair experts emboldened by their $100 ChatGPT University Diploma.

darkstarsys 3mo ago

Exactly the same thing happened when Google appeared on the scene. (Not that this makes it any better!)

skippyfish 3mo ago
Sort of, but I think this was a mix of "I want to sound smart" and "I actually want to know the answer", because summarizing Google search results still required you to read the content, form an opinion, and then rephrase it. With AI, people literally just act as token proxies and are doing it purely for internet points (upvotes, followers, etc)... I guess on some level, they're just providing a service that the "market" implicitly values. But also, in Bob Slydell's voice: "what would you say you do here?"

wccrawford 3mo ago

I think some may think they're helping like that, but I'm sure there are quite a few who enjoy the feeling of being a notable figure in the community because they answer so many questions. These people have always existed and gave bad answers, but now they can do it so much faster, and with so much less actual thinking.

ffaccount2 3mo ago
I did that when I was younger and internet forums we're still a thing. The difference is that I had to do actual research, which often took me half an hour or more, to solve the problem for the asker. I got knowledge and "the feeling of being a notable figure" as you have said. The other side for the answer. I believe my answers were good. The difference is that nowadays people can just skip the research part and copy-paste Llama. No value added.
- dylan604 3mo ago
  >The difference is that nowadays people can just skip the research part and copy-paste Llama. No value added. and why would the person doing that do that? if the person asking the question wanted to know what an llm thought, wouldn't they have just asked the llm for an instant response instead of having to wait for someone else to respond? i'm at a total loss of being able to understand the point. it's obviously different if the response is a bot posting just in case that needs to be explained to a bot.
antisthenes 3mo ago
Do you consider the possibility that some of those people gave good answers?
- wccrawford 3mo ago
  Oh, there were absolutely people giving good answers. I'm just talking about the same kind of person who now just posts what an LLM says, rather than do any research.

jayd16 3mo ago

We had to officially set the culture in the work slack. If you're just piping through raw AI response without any input of your own, you're being rude. It goes a long way.

tayo42 3mo ago
Like you just have a pinned message or something? How did people respond to that?

adamddev1 3mo ago

And then the AI gets trained on the advice and information subreddits, and we see an exponential growth downwards in quality?

tripleee 3mo ago
Isn't AI getting more accurate over time though, as per benchmarks?
- crooked-v 3mo ago
  Yes, but that's with mostly the same data as before, just with more of the preexisting dataset and more RLHF. We haven't seen the ouroborous eat itself yet.
- sandeepkd 3mo ago
  > as per benchmarks That seems to be the key and its risky when the measure becomes the target itself. When you already know the benchmarks, and that drives the definition of success outcome then there is every incentive to just chase them

parl_match 3mo ago

responding "if you can't be bothered to write it, I can't be bothered to read it" really sets people off. they get very mad and ive had some even use ai to tell me why that's wrong. what differentiates you? you could tell me "type xyz into chatgpt" or even share a structured document link from their site. but when you're copy/pasting, then you're basically useless in the equation.

an0malous 3mo ago
> responding "if you can't be bothered to write it, I can't be bothered to read it" really sets people off That’s crazy, it seems like such an obviously fair policy to me. They rarely even read their own generated text. I don’t understand this mentality
- mapontosevenths 3mo ago
  Another human being took time from their life to try and help you It wasn't as much time as you felt entitled to from them, so you responded by minimizing their contribution and being condescending. That upset them. The problem here was not the other person.
  - kaashif 3mo ago
    Someone is drowning and calls for help. I throw a bucket of chum into the water and walk away, putting my headphones on. Well I did take the time to help, better than nothing, right?
  - pebble 3mo ago
    Sometimes a well-meaning fool is worse than no help at all.
    - mapontosevenths 3mo ago
      That doesnt excuse you from the obligation to be civil. Especially given that the other party was trying to help.

hinkley 3mo ago

There are some people I'm not friends with anymore who didn't understand conversational bidding. They would jump straight to Why Don't You Google That and shut down any conversation we might have had. Yes I could get some of this information off of IMDB or a DIY video but I'm looking for color commentary and regional advice, and also in some of these situations, the people I asked know me. They know the sorts of things I don't need help on and the ones I struggle with. So maybe they can tell me this movie or trick isn't for me and I should try this other thing instead. Or which store I should go to for this.

sublinear 3mo ago
I do agree that most LMGTFY was obnoxious, and I'm not defending that. At the same time, we have historically seen a lot of "conversational bidding" lead to low quality shitposting at best. At worst, we see wildly out of touch echo chambers fueled by bots, guerilla marketing, and political agendas. You did solve your problem by seeking higher quality people to talk to. I'm just saying there is more to rejection than the other party "not understanding". In the context of work chat or certain events, I could understand a LMGTFY response as steering conversation out of the mud and saving everyone the headache. It also helps you, the recipient of that response, save face. They're the ones looking like an asshole while you get another chance to try somewhere else. I've met some of the most sociable people upon realizing their usage of these "jiu-jitsu moves" were not meant to be hostile.
mapontosevenths 3mo ago
> There are some people I'm not friends with anymore who didn't understand conversational bidding. To you the "bid" feels like a genuine attempt to connect, that may be a bit indirect. To some people it feels more like you are being disingenuous or awkward. They instinctively feel that your intent doesnt match your words and it sets off alarms bells. The fact that you're on the internet judging the other party negatively for having a different communication style is an indicator of which party was least willing to adapt.
- hinkley 3mo ago
  And you're going to right that wrong by making assumptions. It's usually not the person who gets asked who acts like an asshole, and if you don't don't want to be judged by people for your behavior, start by not openly and loudly judging them for theirs. No sympathy for this sort of behavior and you're out of line. Or you're the problem. I'll let you decide since I don't know you.

lazzlazzlazz 3mo ago

The advice subreddits were absolutely horrible before AI. The entire 2016-2024 period was utter madness there, likely as a result of globalization. As AI gets smarter, it may make the comments better, sadly!

doubled112 3mo ago
Maybe, but isn't it likely the models are being trained on those same subreddits?
- fwip 3mo ago
  They are, and they'll also see a random reddit comment in their web search and treat it as fact.

dataflow 3mo ago

You mean like this? https://xkcd.com/903/ https://xkcd.com/903/

code_biologist 3mo ago

Writing and videos produced before 2022 are the information equivalent of low-background steel (steel produced before the atom bomb era). Not all are precious, but they are important. AI influences are so pervasive at this point, even in informational writing from domain experts. Relentless grounding is my personal solution for my AI epistemic crisis, but it's an expensive solution in terms of time and effort, and triage is hard too.

nomel 3mo ago
What is "grounding"?
- papercrane 3mo ago
  It's when the models outputs are connected to sources. So for example, you might have a company chatbot that responds with a summary of a Confluence page it was trained on and a link to the source. Doesn't eliminate hallucinations, but it does reduce them and gives you a chance to verify.
  - stingraycharles 3mo ago
    I don’t think this is correct, as we’re talking about all online discourse being influenced by AI, and you don’t know what to trust anymore, rather than generating AI output yourself (which is what you are referring to).
    - papercrane 3mo ago
      In this context, it would mean building a knowledge base the model can link to that is considered authoritative. So maybe the LLM is has some slop in it's training, and that causes it to try and output some junk, but if it can't match it to it's verified ground-truth KB it doesn't end up outputting it. The problem is figuring out what is the authoritative sources.
      - 3mo ago

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

ls-a 3mo ago

[flagged]

JoshTriplett 3mo ago
The pro AI wave needs to stop. It's obnoxious. Stop pushing it on people. If people want it, they'll seek it out. And, unfortunately, they'll then inflict it on the people around them.
- metaltea 3mo ago
  [dead]
- ls-a 3mo ago
  Same applies before AI. Things that people didn't want have been pushed down their throat all the time. Stop falsifying the truth
roncesvalles 3mo ago
Your comment has nothing to do with the comment you replied to. I almost suspect it's satire.
apical_dendrite 3mo ago
As long as the leadership of AI companies and the prominent AI researchers are talking about P(doom) and eliminating 50% of white collar jobs, there will be a backlash. As long as the leadership of corporate America is using AI usage in performance metrics and shoving AI into every single product regardless of whether it actually helps the product, there will be a backlash. If you tell people that there's a technology that's going to change every aspect of their lives whether they like it or not (and has a non-zero chance of ending humanity entirely) and you want to throw all available resources into building this technology as fast as possible, do not be surprised if people start instinctively cringing every time your technology is mentioned. If Altman, Musk, Zuckerberg, Amodei, or any of these other people had been half as smart as Steve Jobs, they would have adopted his worldview of computing as a "bicycle for the mind" that enhances rather than replaces humans.
3mo ago

Aurornis 3mo ago

> Advice and information subreddits have gone to shit because of AI usage. Most of the advice and information subreddits I previously visited collapsed into bad posting even before AI. The few I still follow are oddly fine. The key was always having an active moderator who cared and had unbelievable amounts of time to moderate. Once the subreddit gets past a critical mass of junk-posting users, the good users leave and there's no coming back.

cucumber3732842 3mo ago
>The key was always having an active moderator who cared and had unbelievable amounts of time to moderate. Sometimes the mods are the junk posting users. A bunch of the car subs were modded for a long time by some tow truck driver who'd mod them while sitting around waiting for dispatch. Exactly the kind of guy you want refereeing a dispute between some guy who's lived it and a bunch of lube techs who are quoting textbook best practices.
nhan123 3mo ago
Completely agree. A community lives or dies by its moderators. Once the limit drops past a certain point, the experts just quietly leave.

godwinson__4-8 3mo ago

Why limit this critique to one side of the reddit marketplace. If more and more answers are AI authored, it stands to reason more and more questions are as well.

cucumber3732842 3mo ago

> Advice and information subreddits have gone to shit because of AI usage >but instead someone to relay the question to ChatGPT and post the result as if it is their own hard earned knowledge and insight. >people aren’t just refusing to say “I don’t know” they’re actively seeking out opportunities to pretend they know things. What? This is a joke right? Advice and information subreddits have been shallow blind leading blind crap like that and have been for at least a decade. The vote mechanism plus local culture rewards shallow "teennager just googled it" type responses (that AI is basically replacing here) that even people who don't know anything can agree on and punishes nuance and serious understanding. Eventually the people who know their shit make a joke subreddit (which is inherently exclusive because you can't joke about something without knowing about it) and then at some point later people figure out that's where all the smart people are, start asking questions there instead and then it goes to shit in the same way. AI is absolutely a lateral move here.

gherkinnn 3mo ago

It gets better. Kagi search summary likes "people also say..." and then refers to a random LLM reddit thread.

glitchc 3mo ago

When there's weakness in not knowing, it's no surprise. How many of us work in a corporate environment where pretending to know is better than being honest about not knowing?

Madmallard 3mo ago

Reddit has been trash for a very long time. But you know it's worse, because you get punished for criticizing AI comments on those subreddits.

functionmouse 3mo ago

And let's not forget that the bots doing most of the upvoting and downvoting are more likely to upvote bot comments, driving the algorithm. The internet as a public forum is dead. And given the purpose of something is what it does, this is the true goal of AI. I'm certain blowing up the internet benefits very many wealthy and powerful people.

danpalmer 3mo ago

I have seen that many times here on HN: "I don't know but I stuck this in CrapGPT and this is what it said...". I would encourage anyone considering a reply like this to ask themselves what value they have brought to the table over the OP using AI themselves.

wolvoleo 3mo ago
Yeah as if someone wouldn't have done that if they wanted to. Some people still think AI is some novelty people don't know about.
- danpalmer 3mo ago
  This did happen before, and still does to some extent, with people googling and giving the answer. "Let me Google that for you" lmgtfy.com was even a thing, again lacking any introspection about why someone might be asking instead of googling.
  - wolvoleo 3mo ago
    I don't know why you were deadvoted, it's a good point. Though I feel that especially in the latest decade Google was a terrible source for finding things like the best product for usecase xyz and other recommendations. Because not only was the internet full of SEO clickbait fake comparison sites, but Google promoted the fake ones because they paid for it. They deeply undermined their own credibility. It was pretty much impossible to find real info with all the fake clickbait stuff around. Not to mention that even legit news outlets do a lot of paid "advertorials" these days. I'm sure this will happen with AI too but with stuff like deep research I feel like I get better answers than Google has given me for years. Despite hallucination.

annzabelle 3mo ago

Reddit has always had the dynamic of people misrepresenting their knowledge and just repeating what other people said on that subreddit. I find myself doing that when I spend too long on there - posting very authoritatively on something I'm honestly clueless about. One big pet peeve of mine on reddit is on any kind of immigration-related subreddit it is absolutely filled with people talking about how it's impossible to migrate and you'll never get a visa. Yet, meanwhile, people do migrate successfully and legally all the time.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

m463 3mo ago

I remember reading a travel thing a long time ago (before gps was a thing). They cautioned that in some cultures, if you asked for directions, people would rather be polite/helpful and give you an answer rather than saying "I don't know" and giving you no answer. (They recommended that you ask more than one person to be more certain you were getting good directions) In other cultures they were more likely to say "I don't know" at the cost of seeming more impolite. So, we don't know the intent. :)

protocolture 3mo ago

I had to exit the major Home Assistant facey groups due to this behavior. That and all the stupid questions.

rsoto2 3mo ago

I mean that's this entire thread in a nutshell. Armchair experts emboldened by their $100 ChatGPT University Diploma.