I wonder at what point it'll switch to "did a human write this" and I will click away when I realize it's inefficient monkey words.
Will the comments still be worth reading at that point?
[ this comment may or may not be GPT-3 generated ]
Please anyone?
Of course machines are capable of valuable discourse, because humans are biological machines, and humans are capable of valuable discourse.
Intelligent contributions are welcome whether they come from silicon-based or carbon-based life.
Judge the content, not the source.
Deciding on the legitimacy of an “opinion” comes down to meta ways of assessing; including the length of the text (HN rewards longer responses if they can maintain coherence and interest), the language style used (don’t make a technical mistake and use a technical term in the wrong context), the logic with which the argument is laid out, the emotional tone of the writer (No jokes on HN please).
All of these are now gameable leading to say for risk for example of state actors shifting our collective opinions on a huge range of topics.
I regularly make spelling mistakes in my posts and when I don’t correct them I loose points as I think the coherence and easy of reading goes down. GPT3 is unlikely to have the same issues.
And, by the way, journalism never was as matter-of-fact-only as everyone somehow assumes. Even you parents probably grew up in a Hunter S. Thompson-world. Your Grandparents had Hemingway who, despite the short sentences, didn't exactly crack the Shannon Limit in his war dispatches.
There have always been different styles. Just read the headlines only and you're almost back to the 19th century, when news-tickers actually ticked, and every tick cost a dollar, and a dollar is an hourly wage.
But I'd suggest actually understanding the purpose of narrative journalism and occasionally indulging in it. I've seen that complaint so often, and from a certain type of person almost exclusively, and I'm starting to wonder if it isn't some sort of psychological phenomenon, with guys (it's always men) fearing that anything less dry than a phone book rubs up on them, and their masculinity and rationality might suffer irreparable harm from exposure to yucky "feelings".
So...who's cynical here?
Financial news on lesser known public companies seems to be.
It's easy to generate a story based on some numbers about the stock to parameterize it.
Example (showing absolutely no understanding):
"Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc., belongs to Healthcare sector and Biotechnology industry. The company’s Market capitalization is $1.68B with the total Outstanding Shares of 32. On 03-09-2020 (Thursday), SRNE stock construct a change of -2.89 in a total of its share price and finished its trading at 7.06.
Profitability Ratios (ROE, ROA, ROI):
Looking into the profitability ratios of SRNE stock, an investor will find its ROE, ROA, ROI standing at -297.9%, -49.4% and -91.3%, respectively."