Hacker News Reader

Comment by jazzyjackson | Hacker News Reader

It's not necessarily close minded to choose to abstain from interacting with generative text, and choose not to use software that integrates it.

I could say it's equally close minded not to sympathize with this position, or various reasoning behind it. For me, I feel that my spoken language is effected by those I interact with, and the more exposed someone is to a bot, the more they will speak like that bot, and I don't want my language to be pulled towards the average redditor, so I choose not to interact with LLMs (I still use them for code generation, but I wouldn't if I used code for self expression. I just refuse to have a back and forth conversation on any topic. It's like that family that tried raising a chimp alongside a baby. The chimp did pick up some human like behavior, but the baby human adapted to chimp like behavior much faster, so they abandoned the experiment.)

View on HN

I’m not too worried about starting to write like a bot. But, I do notice that I’m sometimes blunt and demanding when I talk to a bot, and I’m worried that could leak through to my normal talking.

I try to be polite just to not gain bad habits. But, for example, chatGPT is extremely confident, often wrong, and very weasely about it, so it can be hard to be “nice” to it (especially knowing that under the hood it has no feelings). It can be annoying when you bounce the third idea off the thing and it confidently replies with wrong instructions.

Anyway, I’ve been less worried about running local models, mostly just because I’m running them CPU-only. The capacity is just so limited, they don’t enter the uncanny valley where they can become truly annoying.

It's like using your turn signal even when you know there's nobody around you. Politeness is a habit you don't want to break.

That's an interesting example to use. I only use turn signals when there are other cars around that would need the indication. I don't view a turn signal as politeness, its a safety tool to let others know what I'm about to.

I do also find that only using a turn signal when others are around is a good reinforcement to always be aware of my surroundings. I feel like a jerk when I don't use one and realize there was someone in the area, just as I feel like a jerk when I realize I didn't turn off my brights for an approaching car at night. In both cases, feeling like a jerk reminds me to pay more attention while driving.

I would strongly suggest you use your turnsignals, always, without exception. You are relying on perfect awareness of your surroundings which isn't going to be the case over a longer stretch of time and you are obliged to signal changes in direction irrespective of whether or not you believe there are others around you. I'm saying this as a frequent cyclist who more than once has been cut off by cars that were not indicating where they were going because they had not seen me, and I though they were going to go straight instead of turn into my lane or the bike path.

Signalling your turns is zero cost, there is no reason to optimize this.

I am a frequent pedestrian and am often frustrated by drivers not indicating, but always grateful when they do!

Its a matter of approach and I wouldn't say what I've found to work for me would work for anyone else.

In my experience, I'm best served by trying to reinforce awareness rather than relying on it. If I got into the habit of always using blinkers regardless of my surroundings I would end up paying less attention while driving.

I rode motorcycles for years and got very much into the habit of assuming that no one on the road actually knows I'm there, whether I'm on an old parallel twin or driving a 20' long truck. I need that for us while driving and using blinkers or my brights as motivation for paying attention works to keep me focused on the road.

Signaling my turns is zero cost with regards to that action. At least for me, signaling as a matter of habit comes at the cost of focus.

The point of making signaling a habit is that you don't think about it at all. It becomes an automatic action that just happens, without affecting your focus.

I have also ridden motorcycles for many years, and I am very familiar with the assumption that nobody on the road knows I exist. I still signal, all the time, every time, because it is a habit which requires no thinking. It would distract me more if I had to decide whether signalling was necessary in each case.

> Signaling my turns is zero cost with regards to that action. At least for me, signaling as a matter of habit comes at the cost of focus.

What do you mean by "comes at the cost of focus", there? Do you mean you are more distracted by having to use your indicators?

Maybe you're just not a very good driver, if you're so distracted by the basic controls of the vehicle.

This is all fine and good until you accidentally kill someone with your blinkers off and then you have to wonder 'what if' the rest of your life.

Seriously: signal your turns and stop defending the indefensible, this is just silly.

You're making a huge leap here. I'm raising only had signaling intentionally rather than automatically has made me pay more attention to others on the road. You're claiming that that action which has proven to make me pay closer attention will kill someone.

By not signaling you are robbing others on the road the opportunity to avoid a potential accident should you not have seen them. It's maximum selfish fuck everyone else asshole behavior.

Did you read any of my comments? I signal when anyone is around and don't signal when there is no one to notify of my upcoming turn.

I read them all. I am especially amazed by the comment that you used to ride motorcycles and assumed you were not seen -- which is a good practice.

The point of indicating is that it's even more important to the people you didn't notice.

Yes, I read your comments, but you apparently didn’t read mine. I specifically said for the case where you don’t notice someone.

It’s pretty clear that you believe that you are perfect and will never make a mistake. It’s at the very least arrogant if not outright delusional.

No, I'm not claiming it will kill someone, I'm claiming it may kill someone.

There is this thing called traffic law and according to that law you are required to signal your turns. If you obstinately refuse to do so you are endangering others and I frankly don't care one bit about how you justify this to yourself but you are not playing by the rules and if that's your position then you should simply not participate in traffic. Just like you stop for red lights when you think there is no other traffic. Right?

Again: it costs you nothing. You are not paying more attention to others on the road because you are not signalling your turns, that's just a nonsense story you tell yourself to justify your wilful non-compliance.

There is no such thing as not signaling. By not using the turn signal, you are lying to anyone around that you might not see, signaling that you are going straight forward when you aren't.

Spot on.

> I only use turn signals when there are other cars around that would need the indication.

That is a very bad habit and you should change it.

You are not only signalling to other cars. You are also signalling to other road users: motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians.

Your signal is more important to the other road users you are less likely to see.

Always ALWAYS indicate. Even if it's 3AM on an empty road 200 miles from the nearest human that you know of. Do it anyway. You are not doing it to other cars. You are doing it to the world in general.

It's also better because then it becomes a mechanical habit, you don't have to think about it.

Not to dog pile, just to affirm what jacquesm is saying. Remember, what you do consciously is what you end up doing unconsciously when you're distracted.

Here is a hypothetical: A loved one is being hauled away in an ambulance and it is a bad scenario. And you're going to follow them. Your mind is busy with the stress, trying to keep things cool while under pressure. What hospital are they going to, again? Do you have a list of prescriptions? Are they going to make it to the hospital? You're under a mental load, here.

The last thing you need is to ask "did I use my turn signal" as you merge lanes. If you do it automatically, without exception, chances are good your mental muscle memory will kick in and just do it.

But if it isn't a learned innate behavior, you may forget to while driving and cause an accident. Simply because the habit isn't there.

It's similar for talking to bots, as well. How you treat an object, a thing seen as lesser, could become how a person treats people they view as lesser, such as wait staff, for example. If I am unerring polite to a machine with no feelings, I'm more likely to be just as polite to people in customer service jobs. Because it is innate:

Watch your thoughts, they become words; Watch your words, they become actions.

> when there are other cars around that would need the indication

This has a failure state of "when there's a nearby car [or, more realistically, cyclist / pedestrian] of which I am not aware". Knowing myself to be fallible, I always use my turn signals.

I do take your point about turn signals being a reminder to be aware. That's good, but could also work while, you know, still using them, just in case.

You're not the only one raising that concern here - I get it and am not recommending what anyone else should do.

I've been driving for decades now and have plenty of examples of when I was and wasn't paying close enough attention behind the wheel. I was raising this only as an interesting different take or lesson in my own experience, not to look for approval or disagreement.

You said something fairly egregious on a public forum and are getting pretty polite responses. You definitely do not get it because you’re still trying to justify the behavior.

Just consider that you will make mistakes. If you make a mistake and signal people will have significantly more time to react to it.

I think it makes much more sense to treat the bot like a bot and avoid humanizing it. I try to abstain from any kind of linguistic embellishments when prompting AI chat bots. So, instead of "what is the area of the circle" or "can you please tell me the area of the circle", I typically prefer "area of the circle" as the prompt. Granted, this is suboptimal given the irresponsible way it has been trained to pretend it's doing human-like communication, but I still try this style first and only go to more conversational language if required.

It is possible that this is a personality flaw, but I’m not really able to completely ignore the human-mimicking nature of ChatGPT. It does too good a job of it.

Sure, I am more referring to advocating for Bergamot as a type of more "pure" solution.

I have no opinion on not wanting to converse with a machine, that is a perfectly valid preference. I am referring more to the blog post's position where it seems to advocate against itself.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com