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Comment by wizzwizz4 | Hacker News Reader

Do you have to be so mean?

yeah, this struck me as a cruel comment, if only out of carelessness. imho the comment author shouldn't feel good about striking at someone who's hurting, whether they approve of their coping mechanisms or not

It was not said carelessly. I care a lot actually. And I don’t feel good about any of this it’s deeply depressing.

Since I’m not the one who used my sisters death to sell a product - and I mean really read what she wrote, she is purposely insinuating that she is having a love affair with the product. “I’ve never read such an accurate Modern Love in my life”, “I felt acutely that there was something illicit about what I was doing” , “One night, when my husband was asleep” - I think I’m being quite nice about it. If I knew this person in real life I don’t believe I would be as nice.

There’s no product being sold; the Believer isn’t a particularly commercial magazine. Implying something feels thrilling and illicit like an affair doesnt mean it is an affair. The sister is dead, no one needs to worry about her. Loved ones who are coping with loss may do so in unconventional ways, and owe nothing to appease your cynicism.

AI writing believable and coherent words is both fascinating and terrifying, particularly to writers. Then arises the instinct to use it as a creative tool, followed by the impulse to edit and workshop the output.

1. You nailed it no one cares about the dead sister… not even the author of this piece.

2. No it’s not a real affair because you can’t have an affair with inanimate objects.

3. I am a writer (so your No True Scotsman implication doesn’t work here) and it’s neither fascinating nor terrifying. The only people who feel threatened by it are bullshit artists worried they will get out bullshited.

It wasn’t a no true Scotsman, but simply stating an area where generative content has a particular implication. You clearly read it closer than many would, and I almost commented on that. I also think that perhaps some background on the publication and author might relieve some of your specific cynicism.

As for fascination and terror, it is not about GPT-3 itself, but the larger question of our utility in the face of an imagined AI’s eventual capability. Heck, some degree of novelty can be generated by Markov chains, chatbots or Mad Libs.

Further, the fact you are implying the dead are more important than the living dealing with loss would make me a the values by which you determine what is sacred.

You are a writer yet are unfamiliar with the concept of metaphor (or this what your second bullet would suggest).

If you write for the web you are in denial. In the next 5 years either you'll be using an AI tool that you gradually feed input to and edit the output or you'll be replaced by somebody that is doing just that.

I'm curious how informed your opinion is by the way. You say you're a writer but that doesn't mean much in this context since this technology is very new and most people aren't catching on yet. Have you tried out the recent tools like conversation.ai? Do you use tools like MarketMuse?

They already use AI and more straightforward techniques to write many articles for the Web, such as market reports. But for creative writing I'm less persuaded, especially when it's not like you have to pay through the nose for writers.

I think I should have been more specific, I was talking more about SEO copywriting than creative writing.

Writers aren't too expensive you're right - I pay $.04-.06 per word for the 10 that I employ. But depending on the scale, level of competition, and return potential bringing in more AI gets attractive and could be necessary at some point.

My point in my comment was just that if you're a writer and aren't paying attention to these new AI tools you could end up getting blindsided at some point or you might see your pay decrease and be left wondering why

Yes the problem is that I just don’t understand a how to use this fresh new innovative product that will sweep the world by storm with its ability to take the burden and hard work out of the whole writing process. If only I see the light through these amazing stupefying mind-befuddling product demos…

And no I do not write ad content for the web nor will I ever get a computer to write my feelings for me. Not in 5 years, not in 10 years, not whatever you tell your up-incoming investors. The fact that writing about personal grief and marketmuse are being equated as like things is rather disturbing, in a sociopathic/psychopathic sort of way.

Judging by all of these comments I believe I may just be in the wrong place and that hacker-news is no longer for people like myself.

I don't see how you could have possibly read the piece and come to that conclusion. The point of the article is not at all that the AI does a great job and makes it easy to write with no effort.

I wasn't asking if you watched a product demo I was asking if you'd actually used them. My company does, and they are greatly helpful to our writers.

I was talking about copywriting more than whatever it is you do so I should have been more clear. Good job rage quitting HN btw, hopefully you feel better today lol.

"The fact that writing about personal grief and marketmuse are being equated as like things is rather disturbing, in a sociopathic/psychopathic sort of way" MarketMuse doesn't write content so this just shows you don't know what you're talking about

You are quite sour and pretentious. This is why you suffer.

I guess there's no accounting for taste. I found the piece a haunting and poetic meditation on grief and recovery.

    I will tell you how it felt for me. I felt I had lost half of myself. I felt I had lost my right arm. I felt I had lost my left leg. I felt I had lost my tongue. I felt I had lost my heart. I felt I had lost my mind. I felt I had lost my eyes. I felt I had lost my ears. I felt I had lost my breath. I felt I had lost my voice. I felt I had lost my smile. I felt I had lost my laugh. I felt I had lost my tears. I felt I had lost my future. I felt I had lost my past. I felt I had lost my parents, as well. I felt I had lost everything. I felt I had lost everything.

    And yet, I did not lose everything. I did not stop being me. I did not stop existing. There were things I could do: I could make my bed, I could wash the dishes, I could walk the dog, I could feed myself, I could live in the world.

Thank you sweet Robot.

>I guess there's no accounting for taste.

I guess there really isn't. To me this reads like a kindergartener proudly listing all the body parts they know. Or some program repeating words it was given (which is what this actually is). It's not deep or touching at all because it's so comically bad.

It's amazing and raw. Not like a kindergartener. Like a person who is experiencing feelings without a clear sense of place or reason. I thought the prose was an achievement for a computer, and the sequential format allowing the AI to finish each story was a novel medium. The AI was a kind of mirror, extrapolating the mood and content of what was written before.

That's how I saw it.

The AI portions as the chorus of a song carrying the mood of the more specific bits written by the human.

I also thought the bit I quoted was evocative of my own process of grief. At first you are shattered. You've lost half yourself. You've lost everything. Then, in the slightest most mundane ways, you heal. I can make the bed. I can live in the world.

This is a level of mental problems is beyond my ability to comment.

However I will say that my comments have far more to do with tact than taste.

And yes poor sweet grieving robot. To bad her sister GPT-2 died when she was much younger.

It seems pretty clear that something in all this is really bothering you. That's reasonable, but do you suppose there might be more effective ways, than shotgunning insults across a comment thread, to try to work out why it gets to you so?

Insulting others as having mental problems because you aren’t able to relate seems to belie a pretty large lack of tact, much less an ability to empathize.

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