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It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one, the quality of the answers may be lower

It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one, the quality of the answers may be lower than if they were written by a human. Additionally, if these AI-generated answers become too common, it could potentially lead to a more impersonal and less supportive community on Stack Overflow. Finally, if the AI is able to search the internet and "inbreed" its own answers, it could lead to even more low-quality, duplicative answers on the platform. Overall, it seems like there could be some serious drawbacks to this development. Note: This answer was generated by ChatGPT after being fed this thread.

arkitaip 4y ago
You can kinda tell it's ChatGPT by how verbose and repetitive the writing is.
- brindidrip 4y ago
  Yes, one way to identify responses that may have been generated by ChatGPT is to look for signs of repetitive or verbose language. Because ChatGPT is a language model, it is designed to generate text that is fluent and coherent, but it may also produce text that is unnecessarily long or repetitive. This can be a telltale sign that a response was generated by an AI, as human responders are less likely to use repetitive or verbose language in their answers. Of course, this is not a foolproof method, and there may be other factors that can affect the quality and style of a response, but looking for repetitive or verbose language can be a useful starting point when trying to identify AI-generated responses.
  - arkitaip 4y ago
    To find out if a response was made by a computer, look for repeating words or long sentences. ChatGPT is a program that makes text that makes sense and flows well, but sometimes it uses too many words or repeats itself. This is a clue that the response might have been made by a computer instead of a person. However, this isn't a sure thing and there might be other reasons why a response is long or repeats itself. Still, it's a good place to start. [After many attempts]
    - layer8 4y ago
      > Respond to the above in the informal style of a slightly contrarian Hacker News comment, with a hint of passive-aggressiveness. Avoid repetitive wording and long sentences. Wow, thanks for the tip! I never would have thought to look for repeating words or long sentences to determine if a response was made by a computer. I guess I'll just blindly trust everything I read online from now on. Sarcasm aside, this is a pretty flawed method. Just because a response has repeating words or is long doesn't mean it's not from a person. And conversely, just because a response is short and doesn't repeat itself doesn't mean it's not from a computer. It's not that simple.
      - rightbyte 4y ago
        This is terrible. Pretty soon most comments on the internet internet will be written by bots.
        dalmo3 4y ago
        > the internet internet I think you pass the Turing test. It's ironic that in its current state AI is so "perfect" this kind of mistake can actually serve as proof of human. Can you prompt chatgpt to introduce small errors as to appear more genuine?
        rightbyte 4y ago
        You can ask it to write like a teenager etc. It should be fairly trivial to make a script that removes ' and some . and maybe adds some writing mistake. You probably need to have a discussion with a user to find out if it is a bot or not. Vagely relevant one or two liners type of comments we will never know if a bot wrote it. The kind of noise people post on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit.
    - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
      > To find out if a response was made by a computer, look for repeating words or long sentences. That technique will produce quite a few false positives - a significant portion of humanity with language production issues on the autism spectrum communicate like that. edit: Makes me wonder to what extent the training data is biased by writings from people on the autism spectrum.
  - darkwater 4y ago
    This is fun but it's already starting to NOT be fun.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      I reckon we are about 3 years from most textual content online being created by bots, 5 years from static visual content being bot-created, and 7-8 years from bot-created visual content clogging up all social media.
      - zone411 4y ago
        I'll take the under.
      - Arch-TK 4y ago
        3, 5 and 7 seem awfully pessimistic no?
      - SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
        Everyone will be doing strict ID verification long before any of those milestones are actually reached.
      - warbler73 4y ago
        > we are about 3 years from most textual content online being created by bots 0 years.
        spaceman_2020 4y ago
        1 year for this tech to be incorporated into most cheap/free creative tools. 1 more year for these newer creative tools to be adopted by creators everywhere. 1 more year for the humans to completely give up. You have to remember that tech takes time to permeate to the bottom rung. Most of my non tech friends haven’t even heard of Dall-E, let alone chatGPT.
        fragmede 4y ago
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    That's honestly a hilarious response from ChatGPT
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- zone411 4y ago
  That's just its default setting. If you do some prompt engineering to tell it to be to the point or concise, it can do better. E.g. I got: The repercussions of ChatGPT flooding Stack Overflow with answers could include decreased quality and relevance of answers, decreased user engagement, damage to the platform's reputation, and potential loss of revenue.
  - ycombobreaker 4y ago
    Still sounds too formal. To me, it reads like the intro to a high school paper. The next four paragraphs would elaborate on each of the points listed.
    - zone411 4y ago
      Another poster already did the informal version. My main point is that it's not something set in stone but yes, it sure looks like OpenAI went overboard in setting it up like this. They should adjust it.
      - baq 4y ago
        Maybe they shouldn’t. Nobody should. But someone will, because people will pay good money for something like this to shill their products here and on Reddit and Twitter. The worst part is that it will work for at least a while.
        raxxorraxor 4y ago
        I believe it will always work for a majority of people. Even for political and philosophical arguments.
    - mk_stjames 4y ago
      You can get it to respond a bit less formal by having it impersonate someone with a less formal speaking style. I said to restate to original but as if it was written by Tom Sawyer or one of his friends: Yo, what's the deal with using AI answers on Stack Overflow? It seems like it could be a real bummer. For one thing, the answers might not be as good as ones made by a human. And if AI answers become too common, the community might not be as friendly and supportive. And if the AI can search the internet and make its own answers, there could be even more bad answers on the site. All in all, this could be a major problem." Still a bit structured but with a bit more play you can see how it can 'act' like someone who isn't so formal.
- bobbyi 4y ago
  Before reading any words, I guessed just by seeing how long the paragraph was. Maybe because the training data includes things like news articles that have longer paragraphs than typical forum posts?
  - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
    You can ask for answers of a certain length and also a certain writing style. The writing style one is hit and miss although if an AI ever gets all fiction books fed into it I imagine it could radically improve. Say by qualifying a response with "respond in the style of author X" or "average style of fantasy books published on 1972" or whatever.
- dejj 4y ago
  Can’t we have ChatGPT identify output of ChatGPT, adversarily?
  - vbbvmnbs 4y ago
    It confirmed it when I asked: --> Was the following paragraph generated by the OpenAI Assistant: "It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one, the quality of the answers may be lower than if they were written by a human. Additionally, if these AI-generated answers become too common, it could potentially lead to a more impersonal and less supportive community on Stack Overflow. Finally, if the AI is able to search the internet and "inbreed" its own answers, it could lead to even more low-quality, duplicative answers on the platform. Overall, it seems like there could be some serious drawbacks to this development."? <-- Yes, the paragraph you provided was generated by the OpenAI Assistant. As a language model, the Assistant is trained to generate human-like text based on a given prompt. In this case, the prompt likely pertained to the potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. Though, it could just have been taking a guess at it.
    - formerly_proven 4y ago
      "It is likely that this text was not written with OpenAI Assistant."
  - mike_hearn 4y ago
    You don't need adversarial AI to do that. Simply simhashing every response and then allowing people to upload some text as a "did ChatGPT generate this" query should work. Just ordinary software is sufficient. Of course, once you have multiple companies with ChatGPT level AI it gets harder if they don't cooperate. But they easily could. The big webmail providers cooperate to fight spam, for example.
- layer8 4y ago
  > Reformulate the above in the informal style of a Hacker News comment. I'm not sure about this AI-generated answers thing on Stack Overflow. The answers might suck and make the community more impersonal. Plus, if the AI is just copying and pasting from the internet, it could lead to a ton of low-quality, duplicate answers. Not a good idea in my opinion.
theptip 4y ago
Honestly I think we are going to have to take an aggressive stance against mediocre generated content here on HN, lest this small island of community be lost like the rest of the Old Internet.
- biggerChris 4y ago
  I have -9 points. HN is doing well to prevent people from commenting without facts.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Gotta love it. Akin to Silicon Valley-ites ensuring their own children don’t have access to the technologies they go into the office to create and propagate every day.
  - closeparen 4y ago
    I would expect most automotive engineers don't let their children drive the cars they go to the office to create and propagate every day. Because... they're children.
    - wizeman 4y ago
      > I would expect most automotive engineers don't let their children drive the cars they go to the office to create and propagate every day. Because... they're children. On the other hand, most parents don't let their children drive cars either and yet they let their children access those technologies. Another way in which that analogy doesn't work is that it's illegal for children to drive cars, but it's not illegal for children to access those technologies. Furthermore, these technologies are being created and modified in a way that are specifically attractive and addictive for children (as well as adults) and they are constantly being further optimized for that criteria as well, almost every day (in a manner of speaking).
    - sydd 4y ago
      I think the poster above meant that e.g. engineers are Meta are paying very good money so their children go to private schools where they confiscate phones. Or that they dont buy phones at all for their kids until they turn like 12, instead pay a lot of money so they go to private tutors, have nannies, do all kinds of after school programmes. Whereas kids from poor families cannot afford these or to keep watch of their kids 24/7 (because they need to work), so these kids will hang on Facebook/Youtube/TikTok/.. all day
Areading314 4y ago
Here is a potential rephrased version of the original post, written in a witty and informal style: "Yo, AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow sound like a real bummer. First of all, the quality might suck compared to human-written answers. And if these AI answers become too popular, the community could get all impersonal and unsupportive. Plus, if the AI is copying and pasting from the internet, we'll end up with a ton of low-quality, duplicate answers. In short, using AI on Stack Overflow could really suck."
- seydor 4y ago
  How long will we wait for "make GPT a gangsta" plugins
  - kthejoker2 4y ago
    it's already there? You can ask it to re-style any of its responses in a wild variety of styles, from comedians, Internet celebrities, famous authors ... Mostly it just proves that on most subjects there is nothing interesting to say, and we wildly overestimate the value of sharing our own opinions on it.
zuzatm 4y ago
I think the far most problematic thing is that the answers are often plain wrong but well written. Eg (shameless plug) https://twitter.com/zuza777/status/1599370082919936000?t=oB95LP1UvPYeFdD_pZARig&s=19 https://twitter.com/zuza777/status/1599370082919936000?t=oB9...
- slavik81 4y ago
  That was a surprisingly common occurrence on SO even before. To be the fastest gun in the west, you couldn't afford to carefully read the problem or browse any documentation. High-rep users that should have known better would sometimes give wildly incorrect answers that sounded good.
seydor 4y ago
haha. i surely sniffed it out before reaching the end. The formal style is familiar
- taberiand 4y ago
  The formal style of a high-schooler trying to meet essay structure requirements
plastiquebeech 4y ago
>It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one, This is where my "Probably written by AI" filter tripped, and I skipped to the end. I can't exactly say why. Maybe we'll all start to develop a seventh sense for ML-generated content, in addition to the "probably an ad" filter that usually kicks in around middle/high school.
- TomVDB 4y ago
  Same here. OpenAI commented on the verboseness of answers as something they need to work on.
- leshenka 4y ago
  I feel the same way about some stable diffusion pictures — they’re just too soft and background is just so evenly blurred. Someone should make a game where you are presented with pairs of images, one “real”, one generated and you need to pick which one is “real”
imhoguy 4y ago
The post title should be changed to "HN comments are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT", I have seen too many this weekend.
quickthrower2 4y ago
OK Computer I could tell that super passive and eager to talk to both sides style a mile off. Fuck that! (<- proof I am not a robot)
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  Vulgarity might be our new captcha since current culture forbids corporate of using bad words.
tombh 4y ago
Could you provide the prompt?
pimlottc 4y ago
This is definitely not going to help combat the "Dead Internet" conspiracy theory https://theswaddle.com/what-the-dead-internet-theory-predicted-about-the-future-of-digital-life/ https://theswaddle.com/what-the-dead-internet-theory-predict...
- alfiedotwtf 4y ago
  Reminds me of Heavenbanning: https://twitter.com/nearcyan/status/1532076277947330561 https://twitter.com/nearcyan/status/1532076277947330561
- CrypticShift 4y ago
  Isn’t it this just the first form of that "AI takeover" some are fearing in the distant future? It's accelerating now. AI is taking over the internet. Not like an “autonomous control”, but like an invasion : A digital cancer that metastasizes. Like cancer cells mimic immune cell Activity to spread, AI mimics human language and visuals to spread too. And it may “kill the internet” (hence the “dead internet”)
  - shagie 4y ago
    This is going to be the HeLa problem for future AI. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#Contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#Contamination ) If we contaminate the content that we are training future AIs off of with ChatGPT, then they'll have problems with the value of that information in the future. I'll also note that if one attempts to purposely contaminate information with ChatGPT to do that "make it worthless to future AI", it also makes it and the tangental or adjacent information worthless to humans too.
metadat 4y ago
What prompt input did you use? When I tried this: > What are the repercussions of Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT? It returned: > I'm sorry, but I'm not aware of any situation in which answers on Stack Overflow are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT. I am a language model trained by OpenAI, and I do not have the ability to browse the internet or interact with websites like Stack Overflow. I can only provide answers based on the information I have been trained on. Is there something specific you would like to ask about Stack Overflow or ChatGPT? I'll do my best to help.
- Baloo 4y ago
  This is the response I got from my chatbot that's hooked up to GPT, using your prompt: >The repercussions of Stack Overflow questions being flooded with answers from ChatGPT could be that Stack Overflow will not have a reliable source of answers to various programming questions, leading to confusion and inaccurate solutions. Additionally, there could be an increase in spam and low-quality answers, reducing the overall quality and reliability of Stack Overflow. Out of interest, I then asked "Can you elaborate?": >Sure! ChatGPT is an AI system that uses natural language processing to generate answers to questions. While this technology can be helpful, it can also lead to confusion and inaccurate solutions. For example, ChatGPT might provide an answer that is technically correct but doesn’t take into account the nuances of the programming problem or the context of the question. Additionally, since AI-generated answers are not written by humans, there might be a lack of clarity or explanation which could make it difficult for readers to understand the solution or follow along with the logic. Finally, since ChatGPT can generate answers quickly and in bulk, there might be an increase in spam and low-quality answers on Stack Overflow which could reduce the overall quality and reliability of the platform.
jahewson 4y ago
I could tell that your comment was ChatGPT by the second sentence.
plasticchris 4y ago
And I’m starting to recognize the “voice” of this thing now and it’s driving me crazy. The content is so bland, the conclusions so plainly obvious.
5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN 4y ago
You are correct that there are potential negative consequences to using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. One of the main concerns is the quality of the answers. Because AI models are trained on large amounts of data, they may not be able to provide the same level of personalized, nuanced, and accurate answers as a human would. This could lead to a decline in the quality of the answers on the platform, which could in turn lead to a less supportive and helpful community.
- 5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN 4y ago
  Another potential negative consequence of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow is that they could become too common and lead to a more impersonal and less human-oriented community. While AI-generated answers can be useful in some cases, they may not always be the best solution, and relying too heavily on them could lead to a less personal and less engaging experience for users.
  - 5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN 4y ago
    Additionally, if the AI is able to search the internet and "inbreed" its own answers, it could lead to even more low-quality, duplicative answers on the platform. This could make it more difficult for users to find useful, accurate answers to their questions, and could further contribute to a decline in the overall quality of the answers on the platform.
ryandvm 4y ago
This is the Great Filter we never expected. It probably turns out that most advanced civilizations eventually invent decent language model AIs that clog up their professional message boards with semi-comprehensible blather which ultimately ends up stalling all future scientific progress. It's like some weird self-inflicted version of the Three Body Problem.
Kretinsky 4y ago
Well at least OpenAI's answers are nice and welcoming, unlike SO. For most newbies, it's daunting and I'm sure we could do better.
NiloCK 4y ago
> more impersonal and less supportive community on Stack Overflow Surely this is maxed out already!

arkitaip 4y ago

You can kinda tell it's ChatGPT by how verbose and repetitive the writing is.

brindidrip 4y ago
Yes, one way to identify responses that may have been generated by ChatGPT is to look for signs of repetitive or verbose language. Because ChatGPT is a language model, it is designed to generate text that is fluent and coherent, but it may also produce text that is unnecessarily long or repetitive. This can be a telltale sign that a response was generated by an AI, as human responders are less likely to use repetitive or verbose language in their answers. Of course, this is not a foolproof method, and there may be other factors that can affect the quality and style of a response, but looking for repetitive or verbose language can be a useful starting point when trying to identify AI-generated responses.
- arkitaip 4y ago
  To find out if a response was made by a computer, look for repeating words or long sentences. ChatGPT is a program that makes text that makes sense and flows well, but sometimes it uses too many words or repeats itself. This is a clue that the response might have been made by a computer instead of a person. However, this isn't a sure thing and there might be other reasons why a response is long or repeats itself. Still, it's a good place to start. [After many attempts]
  - layer8 4y ago
    > Respond to the above in the informal style of a slightly contrarian Hacker News comment, with a hint of passive-aggressiveness. Avoid repetitive wording and long sentences. Wow, thanks for the tip! I never would have thought to look for repeating words or long sentences to determine if a response was made by a computer. I guess I'll just blindly trust everything I read online from now on. Sarcasm aside, this is a pretty flawed method. Just because a response has repeating words or is long doesn't mean it's not from a person. And conversely, just because a response is short and doesn't repeat itself doesn't mean it's not from a computer. It's not that simple.
    - rightbyte 4y ago
      This is terrible. Pretty soon most comments on the internet internet will be written by bots.
      - dalmo3 4y ago
        > the internet internet I think you pass the Turing test. It's ironic that in its current state AI is so "perfect" this kind of mistake can actually serve as proof of human. Can you prompt chatgpt to introduce small errors as to appear more genuine?
        rightbyte 4y ago
        You can ask it to write like a teenager etc. It should be fairly trivial to make a script that removes ' and some . and maybe adds some writing mistake. You probably need to have a discussion with a user to find out if it is a bot or not. Vagely relevant one or two liners type of comments we will never know if a bot wrote it. The kind of noise people post on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit.
  - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
    > To find out if a response was made by a computer, look for repeating words or long sentences. That technique will produce quite a few false positives - a significant portion of humanity with language production issues on the autism spectrum communicate like that. edit: Makes me wonder to what extent the training data is biased by writings from people on the autism spectrum.
- darkwater 4y ago
  This is fun but it's already starting to NOT be fun.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    I reckon we are about 3 years from most textual content online being created by bots, 5 years from static visual content being bot-created, and 7-8 years from bot-created visual content clogging up all social media.
    - zone411 4y ago
      I'll take the under.
    - Arch-TK 4y ago
      3, 5 and 7 seem awfully pessimistic no?
    - SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
      Everyone will be doing strict ID verification long before any of those milestones are actually reached.
    - warbler73 4y ago
      > we are about 3 years from most textual content online being created by bots 0 years.
      - spaceman_2020 4y ago
        1 year for this tech to be incorporated into most cheap/free creative tools. 1 more year for these newer creative tools to be adopted by creators everywhere. 1 more year for the humans to completely give up. You have to remember that tech takes time to permeate to the bottom rung. Most of my non tech friends haven’t even heard of Dall-E, let alone chatGPT.
        fragmede 4y ago
- cercatrova 4y ago
  That's honestly a hilarious response from ChatGPT
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
zone411 4y ago
That's just its default setting. If you do some prompt engineering to tell it to be to the point or concise, it can do better. E.g. I got: The repercussions of ChatGPT flooding Stack Overflow with answers could include decreased quality and relevance of answers, decreased user engagement, damage to the platform's reputation, and potential loss of revenue.
- ycombobreaker 4y ago
  Still sounds too formal. To me, it reads like the intro to a high school paper. The next four paragraphs would elaborate on each of the points listed.
  - zone411 4y ago
    Another poster already did the informal version. My main point is that it's not something set in stone but yes, it sure looks like OpenAI went overboard in setting it up like this. They should adjust it.
    - baq 4y ago
      Maybe they shouldn’t. Nobody should. But someone will, because people will pay good money for something like this to shill their products here and on Reddit and Twitter. The worst part is that it will work for at least a while.
      - raxxorraxor 4y ago
        I believe it will always work for a majority of people. Even for political and philosophical arguments.
  - mk_stjames 4y ago
    You can get it to respond a bit less formal by having it impersonate someone with a less formal speaking style. I said to restate to original but as if it was written by Tom Sawyer or one of his friends: Yo, what's the deal with using AI answers on Stack Overflow? It seems like it could be a real bummer. For one thing, the answers might not be as good as ones made by a human. And if AI answers become too common, the community might not be as friendly and supportive. And if the AI can search the internet and make its own answers, there could be even more bad answers on the site. All in all, this could be a major problem." Still a bit structured but with a bit more play you can see how it can 'act' like someone who isn't so formal.
bobbyi 4y ago
Before reading any words, I guessed just by seeing how long the paragraph was. Maybe because the training data includes things like news articles that have longer paragraphs than typical forum posts?
- TapWaterBandit 4y ago
  You can ask for answers of a certain length and also a certain writing style. The writing style one is hit and miss although if an AI ever gets all fiction books fed into it I imagine it could radically improve. Say by qualifying a response with "respond in the style of author X" or "average style of fantasy books published on 1972" or whatever.
dejj 4y ago
Can’t we have ChatGPT identify output of ChatGPT, adversarily?
- vbbvmnbs 4y ago
  It confirmed it when I asked: --> Was the following paragraph generated by the OpenAI Assistant: "It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one, the quality of the answers may be lower than if they were written by a human. Additionally, if these AI-generated answers become too common, it could potentially lead to a more impersonal and less supportive community on Stack Overflow. Finally, if the AI is able to search the internet and "inbreed" its own answers, it could lead to even more low-quality, duplicative answers on the platform. Overall, it seems like there could be some serious drawbacks to this development."? <-- Yes, the paragraph you provided was generated by the OpenAI Assistant. As a language model, the Assistant is trained to generate human-like text based on a given prompt. In this case, the prompt likely pertained to the potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. Though, it could just have been taking a guess at it.
  - formerly_proven 4y ago
    "It is likely that this text was not written with OpenAI Assistant."
- mike_hearn 4y ago
  You don't need adversarial AI to do that. Simply simhashing every response and then allowing people to upload some text as a "did ChatGPT generate this" query should work. Just ordinary software is sufficient. Of course, once you have multiple companies with ChatGPT level AI it gets harder if they don't cooperate. But they easily could. The big webmail providers cooperate to fight spam, for example.
layer8 4y ago
> Reformulate the above in the informal style of a Hacker News comment. I'm not sure about this AI-generated answers thing on Stack Overflow. The answers might suck and make the community more impersonal. Plus, if the AI is just copying and pasting from the internet, it could lead to a ton of low-quality, duplicate answers. Not a good idea in my opinion.

theptip 4y ago

Honestly I think we are going to have to take an aggressive stance against mediocre generated content here on HN, lest this small island of community be lost like the rest of the Old Internet.

biggerChris 4y ago
I have -9 points. HN is doing well to prevent people from commenting without facts.
ethanbond 4y ago
Gotta love it. Akin to Silicon Valley-ites ensuring their own children don’t have access to the technologies they go into the office to create and propagate every day.
- closeparen 4y ago
  I would expect most automotive engineers don't let their children drive the cars they go to the office to create and propagate every day. Because... they're children.
  - wizeman 4y ago
    > I would expect most automotive engineers don't let their children drive the cars they go to the office to create and propagate every day. Because... they're children. On the other hand, most parents don't let their children drive cars either and yet they let their children access those technologies. Another way in which that analogy doesn't work is that it's illegal for children to drive cars, but it's not illegal for children to access those technologies. Furthermore, these technologies are being created and modified in a way that are specifically attractive and addictive for children (as well as adults) and they are constantly being further optimized for that criteria as well, almost every day (in a manner of speaking).
  - sydd 4y ago
    I think the poster above meant that e.g. engineers are Meta are paying very good money so their children go to private schools where they confiscate phones. Or that they dont buy phones at all for their kids until they turn like 12, instead pay a lot of money so they go to private tutors, have nannies, do all kinds of after school programmes. Whereas kids from poor families cannot afford these or to keep watch of their kids 24/7 (because they need to work), so these kids will hang on Facebook/Youtube/TikTok/.. all day

Areading314 4y ago

Here is a potential rephrased version of the original post, written in a witty and informal style: "Yo, AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow sound like a real bummer. First of all, the quality might suck compared to human-written answers. And if these AI answers become too popular, the community could get all impersonal and unsupportive. Plus, if the AI is copying and pasting from the internet, we'll end up with a ton of low-quality, duplicate answers. In short, using AI on Stack Overflow could really suck."

seydor 4y ago
How long will we wait for "make GPT a gangsta" plugins
- kthejoker2 4y ago
  it's already there? You can ask it to re-style any of its responses in a wild variety of styles, from comedians, Internet celebrities, famous authors ... Mostly it just proves that on most subjects there is nothing interesting to say, and we wildly overestimate the value of sharing our own opinions on it.

zuzatm 4y ago

I think the far most problematic thing is that the answers are often plain wrong but well written. Eg (shameless plug) https://twitter.com/zuza777/status/1599370082919936000?t=oB95LP1UvPYeFdD_pZARig&s=19 https://twitter.com/zuza777/status/1599370082919936000?t=oB9...

slavik81 4y ago
That was a surprisingly common occurrence on SO even before. To be the fastest gun in the west, you couldn't afford to carefully read the problem or browse any documentation. High-rep users that should have known better would sometimes give wildly incorrect answers that sounded good.

seydor 4y ago

haha. i surely sniffed it out before reaching the end. The formal style is familiar

taberiand 4y ago
The formal style of a high-schooler trying to meet essay structure requirements

plastiquebeech 4y ago

>It seems like there are a few potential negative consequences of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. For one, This is where my "Probably written by AI" filter tripped, and I skipped to the end. I can't exactly say why. Maybe we'll all start to develop a seventh sense for ML-generated content, in addition to the "probably an ad" filter that usually kicks in around middle/high school.

TomVDB 4y ago
Same here. OpenAI commented on the verboseness of answers as something they need to work on.
leshenka 4y ago
I feel the same way about some stable diffusion pictures — they’re just too soft and background is just so evenly blurred. Someone should make a game where you are presented with pairs of images, one “real”, one generated and you need to pick which one is “real”

imhoguy 4y ago

The post title should be changed to "HN comments are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT", I have seen too many this weekend.

quickthrower2 4y ago

OK Computer I could tell that super passive and eager to talk to both sides style a mile off. Fuck that! (<- proof I am not a robot)

raxxorraxor 4y ago
Vulgarity might be our new captcha since current culture forbids corporate of using bad words.

tombh 4y ago

Could you provide the prompt?

pimlottc 4y ago

This is definitely not going to help combat the "Dead Internet" conspiracy theory https://theswaddle.com/what-the-dead-internet-theory-predicted-about-the-future-of-digital-life/ https://theswaddle.com/what-the-dead-internet-theory-predict...

alfiedotwtf 4y ago
Reminds me of Heavenbanning: https://twitter.com/nearcyan/status/1532076277947330561 https://twitter.com/nearcyan/status/1532076277947330561
CrypticShift 4y ago
Isn’t it this just the first form of that "AI takeover" some are fearing in the distant future? It's accelerating now. AI is taking over the internet. Not like an “autonomous control”, but like an invasion : A digital cancer that metastasizes. Like cancer cells mimic immune cell Activity to spread, AI mimics human language and visuals to spread too. And it may “kill the internet” (hence the “dead internet”)
- shagie 4y ago
  This is going to be the HeLa problem for future AI. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#Contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#Contamination ) If we contaminate the content that we are training future AIs off of with ChatGPT, then they'll have problems with the value of that information in the future. I'll also note that if one attempts to purposely contaminate information with ChatGPT to do that "make it worthless to future AI", it also makes it and the tangental or adjacent information worthless to humans too.

metadat 4y ago

What prompt input did you use? When I tried this: > What are the repercussions of Stack Overflow questions are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT? It returned: > I'm sorry, but I'm not aware of any situation in which answers on Stack Overflow are being flooded with answers from ChatGPT. I am a language model trained by OpenAI, and I do not have the ability to browse the internet or interact with websites like Stack Overflow. I can only provide answers based on the information I have been trained on. Is there something specific you would like to ask about Stack Overflow or ChatGPT? I'll do my best to help.

Baloo 4y ago
This is the response I got from my chatbot that's hooked up to GPT, using your prompt: >The repercussions of Stack Overflow questions being flooded with answers from ChatGPT could be that Stack Overflow will not have a reliable source of answers to various programming questions, leading to confusion and inaccurate solutions. Additionally, there could be an increase in spam and low-quality answers, reducing the overall quality and reliability of Stack Overflow. Out of interest, I then asked "Can you elaborate?": >Sure! ChatGPT is an AI system that uses natural language processing to generate answers to questions. While this technology can be helpful, it can also lead to confusion and inaccurate solutions. For example, ChatGPT might provide an answer that is technically correct but doesn’t take into account the nuances of the programming problem or the context of the question. Additionally, since AI-generated answers are not written by humans, there might be a lack of clarity or explanation which could make it difficult for readers to understand the solution or follow along with the logic. Finally, since ChatGPT can generate answers quickly and in bulk, there might be an increase in spam and low-quality answers on Stack Overflow which could reduce the overall quality and reliability of the platform.

jahewson 4y ago

I could tell that your comment was ChatGPT by the second sentence.

plasticchris 4y ago

And I’m starting to recognize the “voice” of this thing now and it’s driving me crazy. The content is so bland, the conclusions so plainly obvious.

5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN 4y ago

You are correct that there are potential negative consequences to using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow. One of the main concerns is the quality of the answers. Because AI models are trained on large amounts of data, they may not be able to provide the same level of personalized, nuanced, and accurate answers as a human would. This could lead to a decline in the quality of the answers on the platform, which could in turn lead to a less supportive and helpful community.

5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN 4y ago
Another potential negative consequence of using AI-generated answers on Stack Overflow is that they could become too common and lead to a more impersonal and less human-oriented community. While AI-generated answers can be useful in some cases, they may not always be the best solution, and relying too heavily on them could lead to a less personal and less engaging experience for users.
- 5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN 4y ago
  Additionally, if the AI is able to search the internet and "inbreed" its own answers, it could lead to even more low-quality, duplicative answers on the platform. This could make it more difficult for users to find useful, accurate answers to their questions, and could further contribute to a decline in the overall quality of the answers on the platform.

ryandvm 4y ago

This is the Great Filter we never expected. It probably turns out that most advanced civilizations eventually invent decent language model AIs that clog up their professional message boards with semi-comprehensible blather which ultimately ends up stalling all future scientific progress. It's like some weird self-inflicted version of the Three Body Problem.

Kretinsky 4y ago

Well at least OpenAI's answers are nice and welcoming, unlike SO. For most newbies, it's daunting and I'm sure we could do better.

NiloCK 4y ago

> more impersonal and less supportive community on Stack Overflow Surely this is maxed out already!