Hacker News Reader

Comment by oblib | Hacker News Reader

"That scenario is no longer science fiction. Just a few weeks ago, a self-help blog post written by GPT-3 reached the top of Hacker News, a popular news aggregation website. [2]"

2. Porr, L. Feeling unproductive? Maybe you should stop overthinking. https://adolos.substack.com/ (2020).

It's kinda interesting to go back and review the comments on that submission:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23893817

View on HN

This exchange in the comments was just golden:

> This is either something written by GPT-3, or the human equivalent. Zero substantive content, pure regurgitation.

>> Maybe you're new here, but your comment punches below the belt and isn't acceptable in a community like this.

>> If you disagree, be civil and give reasons rather than throw insults.

You encounter this more than you might think when you point out other peoples' (or bots') bullshit. There are people (and bots) in the audience who feel they have to shout you down, and, effectively, prop up the bullshit.

But, of course, many of them won't hold themselves accountable for what happens.

Wow, I missed that when glancing at them today but I remember reading that comment now and also the linked piece too. I just sort of glanced at the article before reading the comments and recall thinking it really didn't seem to have much of a point but and not really knowing what GPT-3 was when I read that comment. I did do a google search for GTP-3 but didn't really follow up on it. I just thought "ok, could be I suppose".

Now I'll be a bit more skeptical when I see something that seems a bit hollow like that piece does.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com