Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by topham 25 days ago
"prepared to do what I do every single day in my actual scientific practice: type a prompt and receive a coherent, well-structured response that I would then lightly edit and present as my own thinking."

So, plagiarism. Daily.

3 comments

This is satire
Replace science with software development and this just reads like half of HN right now.
My thought process in engaging with the post was:

Reading the title: I hope this is a joke.

First paragraph in: Oh, good, it is a joke.

75% through: Ok, this is a great bit of satire, but this reads uncomfortably like many of the non-joke discussions I've seen around software development over the past year.

despite being satire this is no joke, this is what we are headed into if we dont stop the decline.
I think that's what the satire is trying to warn against.
But when humans do it suddenly it's "standing on the shoulders of giants"

I don't get how you can possibly call it plagiarism if it produce a novel breakthrough - by definition, the existing knowledge base doesn't contain the new ideas generated in this process.

And we've proven it can handle complex, novel thinking when it solved a significant Erdos problem back in May: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-just-solved-an...

I don't have a problem using AI.

I also acknowledge, when doing so, how I use it.

But, literally typing in a prompt and then massaging its output and then claiming ownership of its plan? Yeah, no.

It doesn't matter if the original article is supposed to be satire. I've been using AI to do some coding, I've been using it to help me plan a much larger project. It's a tool, and it's useful; but I am in control of the project, not letting the AI control me.

Meanwhile in my day job, I've had multiple coworkers pump shit into AI and regurgitate the answer without critical thought. They are letting it make decisions for them without validating it first even.

It's not really satire if we're already dealing with this attitude.

The difference is thinking for yourself
Sorry, what about solving an open mathematics problem is not "thinking for yourself"? What exactly WOULD constitute "thinking for yourself", or is this just a magic soul thing?
you read some books and think hard = not plagiarism

you press a button and a machine creates a derivative work from some books = plagiarism (mostly by people who made the machine and charge you for it, maybe arguably you but that's a different question)

What’s going on with social queues today where so many people here are not immediately understanding this is clearly satire?
Comedy is dead. I can't believe so many folks didn't clock this post.

(Also, the word is "cue", as in "signal". English sucks.)

I think this thread is a good indicator of llm bots vs human accounts on HN. The bots couldn't identify satire.