When the HN community "breaks down" articles/topics like this, are those arguments, facts, data repurposed somewhere into an organized fashion so that they can be referenced? *Instead of regurgitating similar arguments over-and-over as similar articles are posted? Is this an opportunity for A.I.? Could the AI solution that is created could be repurposed for other communities/forums/Discord Channel/Slack/Mastodon/youtube/etc?
My idea has always been that you can take a topic like this, and generate 90% of the discussion using machine learning. If I ever have some time, I will give it a shot, or hopefully someone else does it.
Then write a forum software that just fills in the appropriate discussion for each article, and save us all a lot of trouble :)
How good would software and ml have to be before you wouldn't really need to have centralized forums? If the content of messages could be sufficiently indexed automatically- not in the sense of keyword searches but in the vein of actual comprehension- surely there are ways of doing that without anything that far from what currently exists. I don't think it would require skynet.
As someone who has only ever succeeded in bringing down the level of every discussion i have ever been in and never in contributing anything useful, it would be very helpful if i could just be automatically directed to the appropriate content sewer by posting my thoughts directly into a search engine that could dump them in the most suitable location.
The topics of echo-chambers, what constitutes truth, bias and misinformation are at the forefront of many discussions at the moment.
I think the HN community could rally together (regardless of left/right/whatever) to create an online tool that approaches discussions in a logical, systematic fashion.
It could possibly take the form of a mind-map. Lets say one type of node represents an assertions made in a sentence or accusation. The Assertion Node interface would provide sub nodes in which a user could input a primary source that confirms or discredits the assertion. Perhaps if an accusation is levelled against an individual, the Node is marked with a warning that it is currently unsubstantiated until a primary source is provided.
Although I am not sure the best way in which this could be moderated to reduce bias, there must be a clever way. Perhaps users in other argument maps are presented a Node and its children out of context, simply to confirm whether it is logically correct?
Other nodes could include marking logical fallacies, unsourced material etc.
I imagine that many smart minds have come up with logical and systematic approaches to arguments.
Perhaps this is something the HN community could rally together behind, despite many of our differences that could be a truly useful tool for understanding one another?
This would be great.
Also there are often duplicate arguments within posts.
If users could use an HN function to create a 'Discussion Topology' (like on kialo?),we'd get alot of the position definitions out of the way.
If you cared just a little about the subject you would just identify your position.
If you had something actually new to say, you would argue for your position, or you could argue about which topology is best suited for the argument.
There is definitely room for some cool innovation in the online flame war space. I've thought it would be cool to have some kind of dedicated place for summarizing well-worn debate topics so that whenever comments on a site dissolve into assertions about the same old things you can point them towards an existing summary instead of again rehashing the same old facts and contexts. I haven't taken the time to flesh the idea out to see if it could really work, though.
Maybe this is a good use of AI for auto moderation. Save everyone time rehashing the same argument path for recognized arguments by providing the conclusion that the discussion is ultimately leading to. Seems like a good fit for a Black Mirror episode.
Reading all of this has given me the beginnings of an idea. Although I'm not a machine learning/NLP expert the idea is obviously non-trivial to an extreme (maybe impossible, currently): What if there were a forum similar in style to reddit that had a form of auto-moderation that identified logical fallacies and other irrelevant information and then highlighted those within arguments.
For example if there was an ad hominem attack "Fuck you Ellen Pao." The auto moderator would allow the post but would highlight the text red with a small bubble identifying it as ad hominem, users could react appropriately.
Or, maybe you have a long well thought out argument that has a straw man in it. The auto-mod could highlight the straw man to point out that it exists and maybe even format the post to show the point from which the rest of the position is based on that.
Maybe this wouldn't have to be actively presented but just a tool that comments were run through so users could be warned prior to their submissions. Obviously the complications with this would be ridiculous and you could never stop training the algorithm that was processing your text. But the implications of having such a thing seem pretty incredible.
I made this tool after spending countless hours bookmarking replies on HN that changed my worldview.
Its stated goal is to encourage the use of data when arguing in debates. It aims to extract debates out of
threads on HN and propose data already used elsewhere on HN to add.
It started with me noticing two ways I experience joy on HN.
The first is when I discover links to obscure data about topics I know nothing about.
The second way is when I stumble upon carefully constructed arguments hidden inside a deeply nested thread.
Previously, there were times when I wanted to retrieve some arguments in their original form
and all my HN-fu ws of no use. I started to track them more seriously and enjoyed having access
to them when needed.
Then covid came. And with it a big amount of debates (and data ) on what to do, with an uneven quality.
I reasoned that if people debating were more familiar with the universe of existing arguments,
of analytical frameworks, they might quickly converge to the area where they have an
original take and add value to the global mind.
It seems like we're still at quite early stages of collective intelligence amplification. It would be cool to have a Community Notes for HN. It would be awesome to automatically find consensus on comments and posts that lack attention. I suppose the votes are currently behind a private API on HN. It would be cool to play with sliders for the thresholds and see what different content floats or sinks. It's great to see Vitalik poking around with this sorta stuff, with less than 200 lines of Python code - I'd love to see it vastly simplified. I'm glad he pointed to Polis also recently. Really interesting stuff.
Edit: Actually it occurs to me, you might be able to use ML to infer cross-partisan support from arbitrary sources like HN comments and posts. Especially if trained on Community Notes. Might need to absorb some HN audience specific preferences / biases though.
I agree with you that figuring out how to structure debates in an automated fashion is a Hard Problem, but that's not the only way a debate site can add value. Finding primary sources and extracting relevant information from them is such a difficult process that disturbingly few people do it, even though it really ought to be central to a good debate. Reducing friction in the resource-finding process, curating already-discovered relevant resources (one sentence summaries + search), figuring out a way to reward evidence-based arguments, and punishing fabrications would all be huge value-adds. The real trick, of course, is figuring out how to keep people at the lower end of the spectrum engaged.
I recently had the pleasant surprise of stumbling across procon.org, which appears to address some of those value-add categories (it looks curated, so there's still space for somebody to automate the process, thereby extending it to small or recent issues). I was investigating healthcare reform, so I landed here:
Pay particular attention to to "Projects" sidebar on the left. It's a goldmine of relevant quantitative information and the arguments surrounding their interpretation. This is what arguments should look like. Anyone who can figure out how to structure a forum system to organically generate something akin to the "Projects" sidebar might have a shot at making themselves a "citation hub" and becoming the Wikipedia of arguments.
The world doesn't need another opinion network, but it does need another way to argue, and such a site might arise out of an especially clever opinion network.
"If even HN can't do it, I think some of these topics can't be discussed online at all."
They can be, just not in a any format where anyone can post, let's say, 10 paragraphs of whatever, and then hundreds of people can jam their 40 paragraph rebuttals and threats right underneath it. While convenient for many purposes, the formats where the interactions are this tight and integrated are not the only formats.
You need something more like a weblog-structured community, where people can post their lengthy thoughts at their leisure, and others can post their own rebuttals on their own weblogs, but I think it's actually important that there not be tight integration such that everyone is getting a phone notification every time someone posts some link to them.
I would agree that online platforms that stick everyone into one metaphorical mosh pit have certain topics that simply can't be discussed reasonably, but "metaphorical mosh pit" isn't the only option.
I came up with this idea years ago and spent a good time writing about its philosophy, etc. But I'm a practical person and even though the idea intrigued me and still does, I still have doubts about its usefulness.
I'd like to know what HN readers think of it. Would you find it useful to have a place where you can pose a statement which may or may not be true, and argue for or against statements posed by others? If it helps, think of it as something along the lines of reddit, but without the generality.
The advantage over reddit is how other users can benefit from the discussion. By requiring the arguers to choose a side (ie for/against) before commenting, it is possible to quantify the truth of a statement based on the quality of evidence/arguments provided in the discussion (quality can be determined by number of upvotes on a comment for instance). This requirement further forces the participants to do some research on their own before engaging in the discussion (ie because they have to pick a side first), leading to a more relevant and higher quality discussion.
This model would naturally yield itself to controversial topics and not obvious facts (ie no fun in arguing for things you can find the answer to using a quick google search). Of course there are many websites that currently host such discussions, but it is time consuming to get an overall picture of such without reading every post.
Once I “designed” (on paper) a site to hold the meta discussion that happens on HN (and the internet) Many times there is a post about some piece of tech that reaches the top, followed up by tools, counter-ideas and new ideas building on the OP. Would be cool to trace those arcs across time and sites. As a user you could subscribe to the topic and make your comment
Interesting. If it could be integrated easily with discussion platforms, I can see it catching on in contexts like HN where discussion quality is valued.
There is so much room for different approaches here, I don't think anyone has a solution at the moment. What I'm proposing is just a directed search for a solution. I don't think we know enough to rule one out either.
For instance, maybe it involves employing a large number of people (maybe Amazon Turk style), piecing together commentary on shared subjects from varied sources (e.g. different newspapers)
—not that I think that is a particularly good solution, I just mean to point out the potential range of solution-types possible here.
Yeah, a resource of canonical answers to questions. Often arguments are repeated again and again in discussions, often poorly. If you could just point people at this, and pros and cons would become better over time, I think that would be a real win.
I implore you to continue on the path you are -- it certainly does have a lot of potential! I'm after-all only an armchair expert providing a view :)
My overarching hypothesis is that perhaps a more holistic approach is what will change and engage peoples mind, as opposed to a technical listing down of all points of argument. For example the r/changemyview fosters a lot of such discussion. Even HN ends up being a great place gaining consensus on technology choices. What both have in place is that the audience is a targeted community, and there is some basic moderation in place.
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