This reads slightly weird and more like a pledge of alignment than a statement from the heart.

But apart from that, I guess that's always the learning? Journalists (or people labeling themselves as such) often have their own story they want to tell, and usually do so by building it out of little blocks of reality stacked together to form the desired picture.

I would predict a similarly frustrating experience being equally probable even without the "clear anti-AI bias" attribute set.

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minimaxir 9 hours ago | parent [-]

That's an unfair characterization of tech journalists in general. When BuzzFeed News was around, I worked closely with them on technical aspects and projects to ensure that everything was correct and accurate, and there were very receptive to it; it was not a "directionally correct" thing, the journalists wanted to avoid any unintentional. That was also one of the reasons I was open-minded to helping Ed even though we ideologically disagree: the truth is what's important.

BuzzFeed News incidentally was how I first came across Ed on Twitter from his tech PR work about 9 years ago, back when he was writing guest editorials on Gizmodo about Person of Interest (which is very very funny in hindsight). It's from the heart that I'm a bit bummed out that things turned out this way.

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hypfer 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Not to dunk on your friends and all, but wasn't Buzzfeed the exact outlet at the forefront of dismantling the credibility of the word "journalism"?

Like.. they surely had valid pieces, but I remember them also being the ones smashing the system and trust to pieces by being very social-media-engagement-native (for the lack of a better term).

The LLM as this beautiful straight man default human simulator tells me that BuzzFeed News was some kind of investigative journalism daughter company of Buzzfeed the destroyer of worlds, and with that these would for sure be two unconnected entities, not to be judged like that.

And, for all legal intents and purposes, I am of course sure it is completely right. I could almost bet that this exact trick is why there even was a legit journalism daughter company with the same name in the first place.

So that one could well-actually all the bad words away, by pointing at it and either saying "Hey it's a different thing!!!111" or "Hey but we're also doing good work in that branch!!!!1111". Always depending on which is more opportune. Association or disassociation.

Anyway. I do believe you that your friends were trying to do the right thing.

I just have doubts as to why the place they were in even existed in the first place.

Certainly to enable them to do great journalistic work, but maybe not because the corporate superstructure actually cared by heart about great journalistic work.

At least I do not see it around no more, which might indicate that it outlived its corporate usefulness as a moral shield.

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physicles 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They really were separate. BuzzFeed News won a Pulitzer in 2021 (source: Wikipedia). It's unfortunate that they shared the same name.

	▲	hypfer an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yea the LLM also would not stop about how BuzzFeed News won a Pulitzer and why because of that, anything else I said is "me being backed into a corner" and "coping" and "spinning conspiracy theories". But if you jump back, I neither said that they didn't win one (or that BuzzFeed News didn't do real journalism), nor did I say that they weren't separate. The fact that they did while being named identically was the actual point there. But - as said - that's also something the LLM simulated replies constantly glossed over. Ugh __ The simulated reply to this comment, btw is, "look, classic motte and bailey". Because of course it is. It's not really explained further, but "If you say A, then clarify further when pushed, it must be that you're paddling back on your initial A" Something must be in the context window that makes this all insufferable. I guess it's too close to online drama. __ Feeding this the previous revision ends up as "how ironic. By trying to beat the game he just makes it more likely to happen and brings in the exhaustive drama himself". The thing is conceptually looping right now. But I bet if I feed it this revision, it will counter "no, you're just refusing facts here". Why did we train LLMs on twitter again? I shall stop the livetweeting now. __ Ha, okay it thinks it has won by me refusing to play further. Oh god.

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22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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albedoa an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It's wild to watch you lecture someone who just made you aware of the topic that you are lecturing him about.

	▲	hypfer an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I conclude from this comment that the LLM's reader simulation was accurate in that reading "LLM told me that" would instantly make people bail out with "Ha you have no idea" thing. Could've reworded that to not trigger this response, but then it would not have been accurate to my workflow, which is a higher goal in this case. As it is now, it reflects the exact path of thinking that happened. Could've retconned that through the edit feature of course. There are no restrictions to that. But then it would be more "convincing" but less true to reality. __ Beside that, neither "lecture someone" nor "who just made you aware of the topic that you are lecturing him about" is accurate, but it is accurate enough (storytelling and all) to again let the LLM run with it.