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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Digital necrophilia. The living ones are the ones that are going to have to make the objections here.

This is revolting at so many levels.

In a similar vein, I'll bet you that rather soon Faceborg will announce a service to keep the deceased "alive" on the platform, posting and commenting away. For plenty of accounts there's plenty of training material.

Oh shit, that never even crossed my mind. They don't even need the content creators any more, they can just keep everybody on the platform even though they have left. Faking likes and faking posts for eternity.

They already have a feature where a profile can be marked as a memorial page or some such thing, I don't think this is so far fetched considering how ghoulish that robot Zucc is.

Funnily enough FB already has the patent for this: using LLMs for "simulating the user when the user is absent from the social networking system, for example... if the user is deceased."

Oh, so they're not even hiding it. What is wrong with these people not to realize that this is way across the line?

The only relevant line for them is when they are "lining" their pockets.

That's almost exactly the premise of a Black Mirror episode (S2E1 - Be Right Back) so you know it's going to get Torment Nexus'ed into existence.

Suddenly 18 years of HN comments get a different vibe...

What objection? IANAL but offering something "inspired by" is fair use. We have not yet reached a point where you can get a government sanctioned monopoly for your writing style or personality.

Unless they're outright marketing this as "endorsed by" or similar, there is no case.

Revolting and so inevitable though I believe: we're sort of running these already in our minds, we'll be outrun here too.!

There is an unimaginably large gulf of distance between an individual thinking about what an author would say about their writing, and a corporate entity selling the "opinion" of an LLM asked to act like someone.

Please share how this revolting to you

Something in the same spirit as this:

https://www.chiffandfipple.com/t/kenny-g-as-necrophile-long-...

You don't bring the dead virtually back to life to perform tricks for you.

You probably mean necromancy.

> You probably mean necromancy.

I probably did not. Then I would have written that. They are fucking over the dead. They are clearly not communicating with the dead.

What's with the excessively hostile attitude? That's more of a Reddit thing than a semi-professional discussion site that has this as a guideline:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

> What's with the excessively hostile attitude? That's more of a Reddit thing than a semi-professional discussion site that has this as a guideline:

>> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Which part was snarky, excessively hostile or unprofessional?

The beginning, middle and end.

So, in the interest of 'curious discourse' how would you suggest I should have written my comment so that it would be more professional, less snarky and less hostile?

You see, the comment that I replied to made an assumption, that assumption is embedded in the word 'probably'. The person that wrote that presumes to know what I intend. I corrected that. Clarified it and moved on. If that seems hostile and snarky to you then I'm happy to be educated. For myself, I think the comment I replied to could have been phrased as a question rather than a statement.

Your comment strikes me as a bit snarky too by the way.

> You probably mean necromancy.

You:

> I probably did not. Then I would have written that. They are fucking over the dead. They are clearly not communicating with the dead.

A less snarky and hostile version:

> I actually didn't! I specifically meant that they are fucking over the dead.

Pretty much the same content, and it makes you sound like you actually want to interact with other people. Even in your paragraph long explanation you do quite a few things that are just unnecessarily hostile. It's clearly just the way you talk, but it also doesn't mean you shouldn't work on improving it.

> For myself, I think the comment I replied to could have been phrased as a question rather than a statement.

Then you should have (politely) said it.

Thank you. I'm 60+ and I think I'm past saving, but I appreciate your effort to tone police HN.

As well as your own exemplary behavior:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46653114

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45505708

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45334298

And probably others besides.

As an outside observer: mynameisvlad is right, and even provided a better variation of your comment _which you requested_. To me this is an OK criticism, I'd like to see more of this on HN. Then you've thrown everythign in the trash, essentially, and started digging through their comment history. Their comment wasn't even under discussion. I'd like to see less of this on HN.

He's not hostile; he's Dutch.

That's no excuse. Dutch people still have to communicate with others.

"fucking over" as an expression has nothing to do with sex, so it wouldn't qualify as necrophilia.

Neither does digital. Is it pedant day today or did I miss the memo?

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