Comment by rendx
1 day ago
Are you asking how much was done with pen and paper, and how much of it was done on a computer, i.e. machine assisted? Where do you draw the line? How is "hands-on" in contrast to anything? Is it only "hands-on" when you don't use any tool to assist you?
I suspect you're inquiring about the use of LLMs, and about that I wonder: Why does it matter? Why are you asking?
First thanks for taking my question seriously and not as just a rib and asking a lot of questions in return that I want to consider myself.
By "hands-on" I'm asking whether the provided insight is the product of human intellection. Experienced, capable and qualified. Or at least an earnest attempt at thinking about something and explaining the discoveries in the ways that thinking was done before ChatGPT. For some reason I find myself using phrases involving the hands (etc. hands-on, handmade, hand-spun) as a metaphor for work done without the use of LLMs.
I emphasize insight because I feel like the series of work on the Snowden documents by libroot is wanting in that. I expressed as much the last time their writing hit the front page: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566372>. I don't think that that's an implausible claim but I find issue with it being made with such confidence by the anonymous source behind the investigations (I'm withholding ironically putting "investigations" in...nevermind).
If the author actually provided something that advanced to the reader why this information is significant, what to do with or think about it and how they came about discovering the answers to the aforementioned 'why' and ‘what’ and additionally why they’re word ought to matter to us at all, I'd be less inclined to speculate that this is just someone vibe sleuthing their way through documents that on the surface are only significant to the public as the claim "the government is spying on you" is.
This particular post uncovers some nice information. It's a great find. I'm in no position to investigate whether it was already known. But what are we supposed to learn from it aside from "one of the documents were changed before it was made public". What's significant about the redaction? Is Ryan Gallagher responsible? Or does he know who is. Is he at all obliged to explain this to a presumably anonymous inquirer? Or is it now the duty of the public to expect an explanation as affected by said anonymous inquirer?
Remember when believing that the government was rife with pedophiles automatically associated you with horn-helmet-wearing insurrectionists?
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Are you confusing me with the authors, or why would you think I could? And I'm asking 'tolerance' to clarify their question, which means I wouldn't be able to answer it even if I had the knowledge they were after, since I don't understand what they're asking.