
College student uses GPT-3 to write fake blogs and ends up top of Hacker News - factordaily_
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/16/21371049/gpt3-hacker-news-ai-blog
======
ColinWright
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165040](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165040)

... wherein dang points out that "... the story is bogus and based on false
claims."

See also:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24063832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24063832)

 _Added in edit after the first reply to this ..._

Also quoting dang:

 _" They've been trying to manipulate HN with multiple accounts and voting
rings—which hasn't worked—and baity titles, which unfortunately has."_

~~~
0-_-0
Those seem like small technicalities. GPT-3 needs a prompt to write something
so a few sentences have to be written by a human. Also, whether 1 or 2 people
pointed out that it could be GPT-3 is not a substantative difference. The
screenshot shows a greyed out comment which means it was downvoted. Even
assuming the screenshot is faked, those comments are still toward the bottom
of the thread so weren't ones that many people agreed with. Overall, HN was
gamed and I hope this will make people think more about the quality of content
they upvote here. [This comment was generated by GPT-3] [just kidding]

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phoe-krk
Link to the article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23893817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23893817)

~~~
ximeng
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23894742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23894742)
And the call that it was gpt 3 with the complaint about this being rude

~~~
0xdeadb00f
Haha! That's hilarious

~~~
csomar
Plot twist: jackkinsella is actually a GPT-3 run account.

~~~
0xdeadb00f
Plot twist: I'm actually a GPT-3 run account

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blunte
How posts on HN reach #1 is a topic all by itself. To assume it's impossible
to game the ranking is foolish. If I were going to try to fool people with an
AI generated story, I might also take special steps to help push that post as
high up as possible.

Regarding the "content" of the post in question, as TheVerge article notes,
"there’s a lot of not-great writing on these here internets, so I guess it’s
possible that this could pass as “content marketing” or some other content".

Indeed; so much of the internet is full of meaningless fluff and re-speak (for
SEO gaming, referral link promotion, etc.), that whether the fluff is
generated by AI or a human is kind of irrelevant.

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DarkWiiPlayer
Funny how someone pointed out that it lacked content and seemed like something
written by GPT-3 and got shit for it

~~~
kome
ahaha classic hacker news, missing the point elevated as an art form.

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gexla
I nearly always read the comments first and in most cases don't read the
article. I don't up-vote often, but I'll occasionally up-vote an item which
appears to be developing an interesting discussion.

There's also a lot of cases where the article could be an arbitrary choice for
an explosive news item. I view HN as more of a forum by news topics than an
aggregator of news links.

An article which suggests that HN gets fooled by AI doesn't know how HN works.
Though most media articles seem to misunderstand technical topics in general.

~~~
cvhashim
Good point. The title and topic of an article if interesting generates
discussion and input. Does not necessarily have to do with any of the article
content.

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arkitaip
Lots of people don't even bother reading DFA so you don't even need gpt-3 to
"fool" HN.

~~~
V-2
What does DFA stand for?

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rangibaby
Da Fine Article

~~~
drivingmenuts
I see that ducking autocorrect hates you, too.

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biolurker1
How is this not going to turn the internet into a junk box?

~~~
donclark
This is my concern as well. Do we need to create the opposite of this? A
service that searches the internet and 'wades' thru information/trash and then
reports back with 3 best possible conclusions?

~~~
biolurker1
Let's hope Google has the antidote? Otherwise they are doomed too

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YetAnotherNick
I think too much of my HN consumption and upvotes is based on title. I know
what will be in the article when I just read "Feeling unproductive? Maybe you
should stop overthinking". If I agree with the thesis, upvote based sites like
hacker news encourage quick upvotes.

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peter303
I think A.I. chatbots have been in online discussion groups for decades, if
not the beginning, e.g. Eliza. They are posts that almost make sense, but are
off the mark again and again. A current candidate is Craiglist forum
astrophysics frequent poster NumberlineA.

