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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

70 years ago there was a job for someone to stand in an elevator and press a button for the rider.

Today we have jobs for people to rearticulate box scores.

If a computer can do it adequately it should be done by a computer. I don't want to bring back the button pusher and I'm okay with ai authors. But they really shouldn't lie about it

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> 70 years ago there was a job for someone to stand in an elevator and press a button for the rider. Today we have jobs for people to rearticulate box scores.

You might need such an assistant to summarize a Sports Illustrated issue; doesn't seem like you have any familiarity with it.

There are still elevators like that in the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. In addition to the elevators, it's a great place to be if you're a musician. There are studios, practice rooms, and musical instrument shops too.

> If a computer can do it adequately it should be done by a computer

Wasn't there recently some entirely AI "musician"? I'm guessing the person you're replying to doesn't see an ongoing need for musicians either.

The office building in Manhattan that I work at, the elevator is like that as well. I am fairly certain there are plenty of people on HN working in that same building who could corroborate this

> But they really shouldn’t lie about it

If you can’t tell then what’s the problem? If you can what’s the problem?

I have bigger problems with everyday lies that already happen that are treated as “normal”. For example, advertising a price cut as if there’s a discount by raising the everyday price and discounting to the previous everyday price, using celebrities/influencers to promote products, paying for product reviews in some way, etc etc.

And these lies are not something that AI can be trusted to reveal, but a journalist can.

Ummm… what? Can you point to one major publication that is trying to cover this? Media corporations can control the narrative by controlling who they hire. It’s more expensive but they’ve been doing it for a long time so there’s institutional knowledge. Also, these same companies make their money on advertising so explain to me why you’d trust them to go after their sole remaining revenue stream?

I can in fact point to the link at the top of this page as one example.

Journalist have regularly covered journalism scandals. Can you point to AI that is capable of the same?

Another example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2014/11/12/read-the...

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-top-journalism-scandals-207375...

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