3 ms·

Ask HN: AI service proposes content to share based on merit – would you use it?

9 points by mercurialshark 12y ago

What would it have to offer for you to pay for it? Thanks

lauradhamilton 12y ago
If it were better than existing content/news aggregators, sure.
cpa 12y ago
What's merit in this context? What NLP/ML algorithms would you use? I can't think of any that are suited to or good enough for any definition of merit.
- mercurialshark 12y ago
  Substance is more accurate than "merit". You're right, not meritorious but substantive to pre-selected subject matter of interest. Using K-nearest neighbor (among others) against training documents to classify content, in areas you designate as interest. If they meet a predetermined relevance score and sufficient length range - they would then be considered for recommendation to the user.
  - cpa 12y ago
    That's basically what last.fm does, so that's doable and not too hard. As somebody with a formal training in ML, I'm not convinced by the quality of the results (as much as I'm not convinced but last.fm recommendations…) but it looks like there's a good business case to make.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - mercurialshark 12y ago
      Well, it certainly would depend on the use case and the quality would be influenced by both the scoring threshold and extent/quality of training materials. Using large data sets, with a particularly difficult lowest sufficient score, could produce a small quantity of highly relevant and substantive content. If the purpose is to discover a handful of articles in a specific subcategory (ex. theoretical physics) that a user could confidently share to social media - then there is a significant utility to the service - not just a business case. What would this service have to offer for you to actually pay for it? Of course you could say you wouldn't pay for it, simply curious...
dfc 12y ago
I do not understand what is meant by "proposes content to share." My best guess is that I would visit http://proposer.ai http://proposer.ai and I would be presented with a list of things that I should tweet/like/submit-to-hn? Why would I vouch for / share something that I had not read myself? Accumulate magic internet points? I hope my interpretation is wrong because it sounds like a product that supports and tacitly condones shallow, insincere, attention seeking behavior on the internet. I realize that sounds harsh but I am really perplexed by the use of "recommend content to share" versus "recommend content to personally consume." It seems that in order to make good decisions about what to share the site would not only need information about me but also information about my social graph. More than anything it sounds like a wonderful tool for astroturfing campaigns. Corporate PR departments would love to re-brand advertising as "AI based merit recommendations."
- mercurialshark 12y ago
  And what's wrong with magic internet points? I over-simplified the premise. We want to identify interesting and unique content, produced by individuals/publications that may not have any real visibility. This would serve as a win-win for the creator and sharer. Obscure content - that isn't fortunate enough to be on HN or some equivalent - needs a way to be identified and considered for digestion besides popularity. I never said users wouldn't read it before sharing it. While companies could certainly abuse it, that's not the purpose. If I had a smarty-pants blog, but no blog followers, I'd be happy that a deep-learning service classified my theoretical physics blog for consideration/syndication somewhere based on substance of the posts...
  - dfc 12y ago
    I am extremely suspicious of the continued emphasis on "sharing" instead of "consuming."
    - mercurialshark 12y ago
      Ok, I'll baby step my logical jump, people would share things they have consumed first... 1. Identify stuff you would not have known about. 2. Much wow - mind imploding 3. Share something that is different and substantive because I happen to hate most shit on social media (not required, but in reality sometimes people share stuff they get excited about) 4. Make the world slightly smarter, expose smartguy's blog to others

What would it have to offer for you to pay for it? Thanks

lauradhamilton 12y ago

If it were better than existing content/news aggregators, sure.

cpa 12y ago

What's merit in this context? What NLP/ML algorithms would you use? I can't think of any that are suited to or good enough for any definition of merit.

mercurialshark 12y ago
Substance is more accurate than "merit". You're right, not meritorious but substantive to pre-selected subject matter of interest. Using K-nearest neighbor (among others) against training documents to classify content, in areas you designate as interest. If they meet a predetermined relevance score and sufficient length range - they would then be considered for recommendation to the user.
- cpa 12y ago
  That's basically what last.fm does, so that's doable and not too hard. As somebody with a formal training in ML, I'm not convinced by the quality of the results (as much as I'm not convinced but last.fm recommendations…) but it looks like there's a good business case to make.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - mercurialshark 12y ago
    Well, it certainly would depend on the use case and the quality would be influenced by both the scoring threshold and extent/quality of training materials. Using large data sets, with a particularly difficult lowest sufficient score, could produce a small quantity of highly relevant and substantive content. If the purpose is to discover a handful of articles in a specific subcategory (ex. theoretical physics) that a user could confidently share to social media - then there is a significant utility to the service - not just a business case. What would this service have to offer for you to actually pay for it? Of course you could say you wouldn't pay for it, simply curious...

dfc 12y ago

I do not understand what is meant by "proposes content to share." My best guess is that I would visit http://proposer.ai http://proposer.ai and I would be presented with a list of things that I should tweet/like/submit-to-hn? Why would I vouch for / share something that I had not read myself? Accumulate magic internet points? I hope my interpretation is wrong because it sounds like a product that supports and tacitly condones shallow, insincere, attention seeking behavior on the internet. I realize that sounds harsh but I am really perplexed by the use of "recommend content to share" versus "recommend content to personally consume." It seems that in order to make good decisions about what to share the site would not only need information about me but also information about my social graph. More than anything it sounds like a wonderful tool for astroturfing campaigns. Corporate PR departments would love to re-brand advertising as "AI based merit recommendations."

mercurialshark 12y ago
And what's wrong with magic internet points? I over-simplified the premise. We want to identify interesting and unique content, produced by individuals/publications that may not have any real visibility. This would serve as a win-win for the creator and sharer. Obscure content - that isn't fortunate enough to be on HN or some equivalent - needs a way to be identified and considered for digestion besides popularity. I never said users wouldn't read it before sharing it. While companies could certainly abuse it, that's not the purpose. If I had a smarty-pants blog, but no blog followers, I'd be happy that a deep-learning service classified my theoretical physics blog for consideration/syndication somewhere based on substance of the posts...
- dfc 12y ago
  I am extremely suspicious of the continued emphasis on "sharing" instead of "consuming."
  - mercurialshark 12y ago
    Ok, I'll baby step my logical jump, people would share things they have consumed first... 1. Identify stuff you would not have known about. 2. Much wow - mind imploding 3. Share something that is different and substantive because I happen to hate most shit on social media (not required, but in reality sometimes people share stuff they get excited about) 4. Make the world slightly smarter, expose smartguy's blog to others