Hey, wait a minute. I think we got something here! What we need is the reverse, i.e. a LLM that recognizes clickbait and "tames" it (ideally by providing the information in the headline, like Techmeme does [kudos to them]).
I had another idea about the same topic a few weeks ago: Creating a news side which uses the clickbait strategy to only share positive news or mentaly opening up news:
“They Said Immigration Was a Crisis — Then THIS Happened to Jobs, Growth, and Local Communities”
“Everyone Expected Chaos… Instead This City Welcomed Newcomers and Its Economy EXPLODED”
“Doctors, Teachers, Builders: The ‘Immigration Problem’ Quietly Fixed a Problem No One Talks About”
“This ‘Risky’ Policy Was Supposed to Fail — Now Other Countries Are Rushing to Copy It”
“From ‘Unmanageable’ to Unstoppable: How One Tough Challenge Became a Surprising Success Story”
np, it is a hobby horse of mine to point this out in case people are reading and haven’t thought about the difference in some of these algorithms and others
I felt the front page was too calm. I fixed it. YOU WON'T BELIEVE NUMBER 4.
Prompt: Remember this classic? <snip ... Hacker News 10 Years in Future > OK, i have a new idea. want to try? "Offtopic but this title makes me want to create an alternate-universe version of the HN front page where every title is shrill/spectacular/hysterical/urgent/clickbaity. Such as:
The Absolute State of the Kernel Rust Experiment Right Now
And every comment has its confidence/aggressiveness taken up to 11 (tho still within site rules)." And the HN front page right now is: <snip>
What's actually mind-blowing is how mice aren't already living till an age of 100. I mean, they've literally cured cancer, what's your excuse now, huh?
Gotta have the digital laugh track analogue to show people how to react.
(I'm not kidding, a ton of people will watch e.g. movie trailers or live streamed events through one of many reaction streamers so they get prompted on how to feel. I hated laugh tracks back then, I hate reaction streamers now, let me have my own feelings!)
Of course it is boring and silly for me. That's why I commented. The downvotes show the community agrees with you and disagrees with me. That's fine. I'm here to speak my opinion. I'm not here to speak your opinion.
I know about lucky 10000. It's the XKCD joke that is increasingly being used as an excuse to support every low-effort banal post. It's like modus operandus now. Party A makes a low-effort banal post. Party B questions why a banal post deserves to be on the front page. Party C says 'lucky 10000'.
There may be lucky 10000 but it's boring and silly for me. Good for the lucky 10000, but it's distracting to me when this kind of AI spam hits the front page every week. Show HN posts already gets special appearance at /show which I think is enough for this kind of stuff.
It is and I said as much. I'm sure these experiments are fun for the creator. From the downvotes I'm getting, I'm sure it's fun for the community too. It was fun for me too the first time. It's not fun if this type of experiments are on the front page every week. There's already a good home for these posts at /show. Pages can reach /show without reaching front page. This could have been one of them. But anyway others here disagree with me. So I'll go take a break now.
I have a lot of fun with this.
“They Said Immigration Was a Crisis — Then THIS Happened to Jobs, Growth, and Local Communities”
“Everyone Expected Chaos… Instead This City Welcomed Newcomers and Its Economy EXPLODED”
“Doctors, Teachers, Builders: The ‘Immigration Problem’ Quietly Fixed a Problem No One Talks About”
“This ‘Risky’ Policy Was Supposed to Fail — Now Other Countries Are Rushing to Copy It”
“From ‘Unmanageable’ to Unstoppable: How One Tough Challenge Became a Surprising Success Story”
Actually worth a shot, thanks!
Edit: Just found out HN deletes emojis!
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On a more serious note, it's a bit sad how close this is to actual algorithm-driven social media or news-based platforms.
hackernews is algorithm-driven too; the difference is incentives (namely paid ads)
Should instead say personalised algorithms and targeted ads.
Prompt: Remember this classic? <snip ... Hacker News 10 Years in Future > OK, i have a new idea. want to try? "Offtopic but this title makes me want to create an alternate-universe version of the HN front page where every title is shrill/spectacular/hysterical/urgent/clickbaity. Such as: The Absolute State of the Kernel Rust Experiment Right Now And every comment has its confidence/aggressiveness taken up to 11 (tho still within site rules)." And the HN front page right now is: <snip>
At least the HuffPo of the last decade was like this. They haven't been relevant for many years it seems.
As to its founder: http://www.thestacksreader.com/the-many-faces-of-arianna/
But more seriously, get off youtube or curate your stream if this is a common thing. I thankfully don't get it much myself.
If my mathematics degree had been framed this way, I probably would have enjoyed it more.
There's something to investigate here.
Made me notice I'm actually exposed to very similar crap on other places. Scary.
What's actually mind-blowing is how mice aren't already living till an age of 100. I mean, they've literally cured cancer, what's your excuse now, huh?
HN ought to indicate these titles in ALL RED.
WSJ, FT, BLM, too many to count.
Some platforms might buy this as an engagement booster.
It’s better.
1. https://www.theregister.com/
(I'm not kidding, a ton of people will watch e.g. movie trailers or live streamed events through one of many reaction streamers so they get prompted on how to feel. I hated laugh tracks back then, I hate reaction streamers now, let me have my own feelings!)
This kind of thing is fun once. And it was fun when the AI-generated fake HN was posted last week.
But there's no need to upvote this kind of stuff to front page every week. The novelty wears off. It gets boring and silly pretty quickly.
I know about lucky 10000. It's the XKCD joke that is increasingly being used as an excuse to support every low-effort banal post. It's like modus operandus now. Party A makes a low-effort banal post. Party B questions why a banal post deserves to be on the front page. Party C says 'lucky 10000'.
There may be lucky 10000 but it's boring and silly for me. Good for the lucky 10000, but it's distracting to me when this kind of AI spam hits the front page every week. Show HN posts already gets special appearance at /show which I think is enough for this kind of stuff.
How perfectly accommodating does life have to be to not annoy you?
I don't need to tell you the answer. You're not my mom nor my therapist.
Just as you are bothered by my comment enough to leave this comment, I'm bothered by banal low-effort AI-generated spam enough that I left my comment.