Comment by dang
1 day ago
We've replaced the baity generic title with the slightly less baity, but at least specific, subtitle.
(This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.)
1 day ago
We've replaced the baity generic title with the slightly less baity, but at least specific, subtitle.
(This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.)
Thanks for the attention. Why did you change the title? I don't really care much; just curious which specific guideline you're referring to.
> "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
The original name of the post was the original title ("Please Stop Talking About AGI"). I'm the author; I wrote it. The new title is the post's subtitle.
1 reply →
Is it that imperative voice is necessarily baity? Or is it simply the case that we can't be outwardly critical of AI itself at all anymore? I know your working hard dang, but things are getting a little fuzzy around here lately..
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=please+dont
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=please+stop
Oh for sure it is. "Please stop $Fooing" and its more aggressive cousin, "Stop $Fooing" (not to mention "For the love of god would you all please stop $Fooing or I will $Bar you" and sundry variations) belong to a family of internet linkbait tropes.
> is it simply the case that we can't be outwardly critical of AI itself at all anymore
You need only, er, delve into any large HN thread about AI to see that this is very far from the case! especially the more generic threads about opinion pieces and so on.
I think the air on HN is too cynical and curmudgeonly towards new tech right now, and that worries me. Not that healthy skepticism is unwarranted (it's fine of course) but for HN itself to be healthy, there ought to be more of a balance. Cranky comments about "slop"* ought not to be the main staple here—what we want is curious conversation about interesting things—but right now it's not only the main staple, I feel like we're eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
But I'm not immune from the bias I'm forever pointing out to other people (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43134194), and that's probably why we have opposite perceptions of this!
* (yes it annoys me too, that's not my point here though)
I'll admit, I don't know if I understand the point, regardless of our differing biases here. Curious or critical conversation does not itself guarantee an even number of yaysayers and naysayers to a given topic, and it seems a doomed project to try to make it so. I guess I like to come here because it feels like a certain reflection of my peers, where sometimes my views put me in the minority, sometimes not, and thats ok! I understand policing tone and baityness and flamewar, I understand limiting outright politics as much as possible, and I empathize with your singular, probably pretty wretched perspective to The Discourse right now as ever; but to have "balance" for the sake of itself, at perhaps the cost of, lets say, editorial freedom in this instance does feel like a change, one even that could maybe be articulated in the guidelines (although I am at a loss personally for how to formulate it). I just can't help but think of how different this all would be if the topic in question was, e.g., climate change, or vaccination, or modern slavery.
But regardless, its not really important for me to understand, and this place has been here way before me, and will perhaps be here way after! For me personally, its at least enlightening to know this is the official stance and will help me adjust my future participation! Thanks for the time.
2 replies →
Yeah, exactly. Looking through these, I think my original title is probably slightly better.
I think there's a lot more information in this one. Before I decide if I want to click or not, I know it's about Yann Lecun and LLMs at least. Where as Please Stop Talking About AGI could get me anything from Roko's Basilisk to a PSA.