| HN Mirror

>Also given we both managed to produce more than one sentence, and include capital letters in our comments, it's entirely possible both of us will be accused of being an AI.

Could anyone explain the esoteric meaning of why people started doing that shit? I got a hypothesis, what's going on is something like this:

1. Prove you are human: write Like A Fucking Adult You Weirdo (internal designator for a specific language register, you know the one)

2. Prove you are human: _DON'T_ write Like A Fucking Adult You Weirdo (because that's how LLMs were trained to write, silly!)

3. ???? (cognitive dissonance ensues)

4. PROFIT (you were just subject to some more attrition while the AI just learned how to pass a lil bit better)

I never thought computer programmers of all people would get trapped in such a simple loop of self-contradiction.

But I guess the human materiel really has degraded since whenever. I blame remote work preventing us from even hypothetically punching bosses, but anyway weird fucking times eh?

Maybe the posts trying to figure "this post is AI, that post is not AI" are themselves predominantly AI-generated?

Or is it just people made uncomfortable by what's going on, but not able to articulate further, jumping on the first bandwagon they see?

Or maybe this "AI-doubting of probably human posters" was started by humans, yes - then became "a thing", and as such was picked up by the LLM?

Like who the fuck knows, but with all honesty that's how I felt about so many things, dating from way before LLMs became so powerful that the above became a "sensible" question to ask...

Predominantly those things which people do by sheer mimesis - such as pop culture.

"Are you a goddam robot already - don't you see how your liking the stupid-making song is turning you into stupid-you, at a greater rate than it is bringing non-stupid-you aesthetic satisfaction?" type of thing -- but then I assume in more civilized places than where I come from people are much more convincingly taught that personal taste "doesn't matter" (and simultaneously is the only thing that matters; see points 1-4... I guess that's what makes some people believe curating AI, i.e. "prompt engineering" can be a real job and not just boil down to you being the stochastic parrot's accountability sink?)

I'm not even sure English even has the notions to point out the concrete issue - I sure don't know 'em.

Ever hear of the strain of thought that says "all metaphysical questions are linguistic paradoxes (and it's self-evidently pointless to seek answers to nonsensical questions)"?

Feels kinda like the same thing, but artificially constructed within the headspace of American anti-intellectuallism.

Maybe a correct adversarial reading of the main branding acronym would be Anti-Intelligence.

You know, like bug spray, or stain remover.

But for the main bug in the system; the main stain on the white shirt: the uncomfortable observation that, in the end, some degree of independent thinking is always required to get real things done which produce some real value. (That's antithetical to standard pro-social aversive conditioning, which says: do not, under any circumstance, just put 2 and 2 together; lest you turn from "a vehicle for the progress of civilization" back into a pumpkin)