Unfortunately there is no way to combat this, and it seems like the end of the internet we once knew. Even with a “proof of human” technology, people could still just paste whatever AI-generated text they wanted, under their “real” account.

This has likely been going on since the first ChatGPT was released.

I am moderating an art subreddit with about 2m users and the AI „art“ spam is getting really annoying to moderate. I don’t even understand what the purpose of these accounts is.

I'd guess it's karma farming so that they can be used to steer sentiment in subreddits that require positive post karma to comment / contribute.

some people just like seeing their numbers go up

dopamine is a hell of a drug

There are ways to combat it -- LLM-generated text leaves statistical fingerprints that appear to endure across big foundation model generations.

I'm working on Binoculars with some UMD and CMU folks and wanted to test it out on this. I downloaded one bot's comment history (/u/markusrorscht). 30% of the comments rated human-like, compared to 95-100% of comments from a few human users.

So, practically speaking, statistical methods are still able to provide a fingerprinting method, and one that gets better as comment history gets longer. And they can be combined with other bot detection methods. IMO bot detection will stay a cat-and-mouse game, rather than (LLM-powered) bots winning the whole thing.

Interesting-- thanks for the insight!

If I read a comment that has any probability of changing my mind about a fact or opinion, I always go to the user page to check their registration date. No hard cut-off date but I usually discount or ignore any account >= 2020.

Sure but what about false positives? What about real accounts newer than that? This is a work around but not a good solution.

That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, personally.

wait if they make a good point that has changed your mind, you discount it if you don’t like the source?

so you prefer authority of the messenger over merit of the message?

In some case yes. If their argument is based on their own personal experience and it turns out that personal experience isn't true.

you can buy old accounts for like $3

There is a word of power that machines cannot utter.

supercalifragalisticexpialadocious?

Paid only platforms here we come.

My most prominent memory of Jason was seeing him park his Tesla in the “no parking” zone in front of the building where his startup conference was happening. My boss at the time thought it was “so badass”, but it was so obviously an arrogant elitist LARP by an insecure man.

The older I get, the more I see through this awful behavior.

That's such a dumb thing to think is badass too haha

I attended a bigwig event where Jason gave a speech; I’d heard of him but hadn’t followed his podcast or seen him talk before. I was dumbfounded by the arrogance and lack of concern for people. It left me with a very negative impression of the tech bro scene and Musk (who he mentioned he was buddies with this) and this was pre MAGA-Musk.

Exactly the same reaction. I realized these kind of people don’t actually care about technology. They’re not engineers. They don’t love the industry or the impressive human achievement. They see tech as a vehicle to power. It’s all a power game.

Hype cycle slop reminiscent of Business Insider, etc. Reminds of me engagement bait threads on Twitter which always include the “thread” emoji and the downward pointing finger emoji.

> narcissistic people who were utterly twisted by their caregivers as children

Please don't be too quick to blame parents - remember we used to blame autism on refrigerator mothers: https://en-wp.org/wiki/Refrigerator_mother_theory -- society tends to victimise mothers and without knowing the people involved nasty stereotypes are unhealthy.

Mayo clinic says:

  Although the cause of narcissistic personality disorder isn't known, some researchers think that overprotective or neglectful parenting may have an impact on children who are born with a tendency to develop the disorder.

That is: parenting can be a cause but please don't jump to the harmful generalisation that parenting is always the cause.

Thrilled to see some love for History for Granite. That and Ancient Architects are fantastic if you’re a specific type of history nerd.

I wrote a book about adult ADHD that has been well received by many HN oriented folks, but never quite took off as its own post.

Here: https://adhdpro.xyz/

Distractions usually happen when you’re not satisfied with the other things in front of you. Of course nothing is black and white, but that’s what I’ve found.

I wrote a book on ADHD that quite a few HN users enjoyed: https://adhdpro.xyz/

Wow, that book looked interesting. I just ordered it from Amazon kindle. Hopefully I will read it (and not procrastinate or be distracted from reading it)

I spent ~$2700 on a new mattress. I no longer wake up with hip or lower back pain. My sleeps are an order of magnitude better.

I ended up with a Tempurpedic. I spent about 2 hours trying every mattress at the store and bought the one that felt best. There’s probably a million hacks to get that mattress cheaper, but I regret nothing. One of the best purchases I’ve ever made. It also came with 2 “free” memory foam pillows, and my random neck pains are also gone.

I second this suggestion. I also spent years on crappy cheap mattresses, until I was traveling monthly and noticed that (at least after the first night) I slept better just about anywhere else than at home. So I bought a Tuft&Needle Mint, which has been pretty good. Then over the Christmas holiday I let my brother use my bed and I slept down on a crappy fold-out loveseat in the basement for a week. Much to my surprise (and a bit of deja vu) I found I was sleeping better than usual. Apparently I now need something even firmer than the Mint, so I have a Helix Twilight on order as my 2022 Christmas present to myself. I've also spent a fair bit of money on good pillows, good curtains, etc. because getting a good night's sleep is huge and increasingly hard to get at my age. Nobody I've known has ever seemed to regret getting a good mattress.

Seconded on a quality mattress. I acquired a new luxury Puffy hybrid from my parents, who bought it but didn't like it. I sleep better than I can remember, and don't wake up with random aches and pains. It's life changing, coming from a series of budget mattresses.

I did similar but had worse outcome. Thought my shoulder pain was due to 10 year old mattress. Tried them all, got Tempurpedic thinking "30 day guarantee" would be worth trying. 30 days passed and we both felt it too hard, but not so terrible we wanted the hassle of returning and picking another. Didn't fix my shoulder - that was unrelated. Still have insomnia.

7-8 years ago I got one of those Leesa online mattresses, based on checking out all the different mattresses, it seemed to be the one that was closest to a latex-like experience without being latex priced. My wife was still having some pain so we ended up putting a ~3" latex topper on it. It's been a great mattress. I'll agree that a mattress that is comfortable is a worthy investment.

Oh yeah, 100% agree this is the clear-cut best answer. If you can only upgrade one big thing, make it your mattress.

> memory foam pillows, and my random neck pains are also gone

those gave me my random neck pains in the first place :D

Getting the right pillow is a struggle, all right. It has to be just the right depth for me, which is hard to achieve in the first place and harder to maintain even as the pillow and my mattress and my body all age in different ways. It almost seems like truly quantitative pillow personalization is a business opportunity.

This entire article was born from conversations I was having when doing research for my book on ADHD (https://adhdpro.xyz/), so it’s a pretty strong correlation I would say :)

Thanks for the book. I managed to "read" it whole in about an hour. And basically, yes I do have ADHD as you described half of my life even the "smart girls" example did hit me as I did had similar smart girls back in the day in my classes. Also I did already try most of that stuff in the book, but I don't want to try let's say shrooms and I already quit somking tobbacco 3 years ago after 10+ years smoking. So I guess right now all I need is to be diagnosed and get some meds which I already had a schedule for the next week done like two days ago and your book only solidifies me in that move. Only thing I'm scared of is that the doc wont take me serious and will try to avoid prescribin the meds. Or will try to extend the whole process for another 2-3 months before prescribing anything as its not that easy to get ADHD meds from where I'm from due to their bad "rep".

But yea thanks for your book I am 100% sure I have ADHD and I was sure of it for at least the last few years but it is really difficult to find a good professional to get the help you really need.

Thanks for buying my book! I think you’ll do just fine with your doctor. If you want to chat about that, please send me an email :)

"A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one." I'll check the book out.

Thanks for the link! I just bought your book :)

Wildcard burnout will be the next article