While being an insightful satire of mass training LLMs with (negative) reinforcement learning, it's actually from the 1993 episode "Last Exit to Springfield", thought by many (including me) to be the single greatest Simpsons episode of all time (https://www.reddit.com/r/Simpsons/comments/1f813ki/last_exit...).
Where does this lack ethics? It seems that they are providing a useful service, that they created with their hard work. People are allowed to make money with their work.
I didn’t say it lacked ethics, I said I expected it to be driven by ethics. There’s a world of difference. I just mean it initially sounded like this was a protest project “for the people”, done in a way to take back power from big corporations, and was saddened to see it’s another generic commercial endeavour.
> People are allowed to make money with their work.
Which is why I said it’s their prerogative.
If you’re going to reply, please strive to address the points made, what was said, not what you imagine the other person said. Don’t default to thinking the other person is being dismissive or malicious.
- a big part of the discussion is in the context of inflation and price gouging
- pricewatcher presents its data publicly for all consumers to see and use, it is clearly intended as a tool for consumers to combat price gouging strategies
- 'pricewatcher.gr is an independent site which is not endorsed by any shop', nothing suggests this website is making money off consumers
- the 'similar website' however is offering exclusive access to data to businesses, at a price, in order for those business to undercut the competition and become more profitable
So the goals are almost opposite. One is to help consumers combat price gouging of supermarkets, the other is to help supermarkets become (even) more profitable. It is similar in the sense that it is also scraping data, but it's not strange to think being similar would mean they would have the same goal, which they don't.
> It just seems a little strange when you then go on to say “strive to address… what was said, not what you imagine the other person said”.
It’s not strange at all if you pay attention to the words. I did not mischaracterise the author or their goals, I explained what I expected and what I felt regarding what I experienced reading the post and then the website.
In other words, I’m not attacking or criticising the author. I’m offering one data point, one description of an outside view which they’re free to ignore or think about. That’s it.
Don’t take every reply as an explicit agreement or disagreement. Points can be nuanced, you just have to make a genuine effort to understand. Default to not assuming the other person is a complete dolt. Or don’t. It’s also anyone’s prerogative to be immediately reactive. That’s becoming ever more prevalent (online and offline), and in my view it’s a negative way to live.
I would argue that you imagined something that the other person said - in this context, the other website. This is why your "strive to address... what was said, not what you imagine the other person said" comment sits uneasily for me.
I'm not sure if your highly condescending and somewhat reactive tone is intended or not, perhaps it's satirical, but in case you are unaware, your tone is highly condescending. Saying things like "if you pay attention to the words" and "you just have to make a genuine effort to understand" and your didactic "default to this" comes across rather badly.
Respectfully, I don’t relish the idea of wasting more time failing to impart the difference between criticism and expressing personal disappointment. It is possible to dislike something without thinking that thing or its author are bad. Not everything is about taking a side. We used to be able to understand that.
My tone did succumb to the frustration of having the point be repeatedly strawmanned (you’ll have to turn on show dead to see every instance), which is worryingly becoming more common on HN. I accept and thank you for calling that out. While in general I appreciate HN’s simple interface, it makes it easy to miss when the person we’re talking to on a new reply is not the same as before, so I apologise for any negativity you felt from me.
I may still see your reply to this (no promises) but forgive me if I don’t reply further.
It absolutely is. I know of independent researchers doing some side project work on various social media platforms utilizing chatGPT for responses and measuring engagement.
As to your very last point, it isn’t my “job”. It’s yet another task that I take on for no recognition, nor additional pay - as is much of academic life.
Jobs come with a lot of shitty aspects. Don't get me wrong, I generally don't enjoy reviewing either. But I put a lot of work into it because regardless of what I think, this has a significant effect on real people and their entire livelihoods can depend on this task. Especially those in their early career. One or two publications in a top tier journal can land them that internship or job which snowballs.
So I'd ask you do one of two things, either:
- Review a work with the diligence and care that you wish someone would give to you
or
- Don't review
I'd also appreciate it if you openly recognized how stochastic the system is and that if/when you become in a position where you need to evaluate someone, that you remember this and take it into consideration. It has a lot of value to you too, since if the metric is extremely noisy it doesn't provide you value to heavily rely upon that metric. Look for others.
I do see it as my job, and my responsibility. I also see it as my job to help more junior colleagues, and even to teach what I've learned to undergraduates. I don't want to do any of those things. I don't even want to write papers. I just want to sit on my couch, code, and discover new knowledge that blows my mind.
But, people pay me to do a job. It's not in my contract in any clear terms, but to do my job well I need to do all those things; and I like doing my job well.
