lemarchr

It was so refreshing to see a video with a clear and direct title. In 2026 this would have been "We cracked open a motor. You won't believe what we found inside! <emoji>". Checking the channel, it seems they have succumbed to this for their latest videos.

That would be a different experiment.

Some here are arguing that mechanisms used by LLM providers already derail the goal of "the very best, most precise words at every single decision point", therefore the author is misguided.

The author has expressed a preference. Assume that there is a sequence of tokens, such that it is considered the absolute best by the author. This particular method of watermarking makes it less likely to generate that sequence, by definition.

I feel their argument would have been clearer and stronger if they had spent more time exploring the alternatives, and whether these alternatives would be just as effective. It is trivially easy to remove invisible tokens.

Like it or not, there is a public good to being able to identify AI generated content, and a small degredation in quality is tolerable in my opinion.

I don't think anybody has to worry about this issue though. Manual writing, coding, and proof reading continues to be an option. Where AI output is nothing to be ashamed of, the tools are available. For everyone else, there will be LLM providers that ignore EU law.

I also suspect those who have decided to leave their employer will be more likely to create, maintain, and even keyword stuff the skills listed on their LinkedIn profile. This would be a poor proxy for real world skill level and their impact on the departed organisation.

And despite the click bait "billions wasted" headline, at no point does the article offer any information on the alleged billions wasted.

It's global news to me. Hello from Australia!

Edit: Ah wait, I think I get what you mean. By "global news" you mean it's been deemed worthy of sharing to an international audience by media outlets, as opposed to a crowdsourcing news source like HN. Is that right?

Argument from authority is a pernicious fallacy, and typically effective too. You were right to call it out. I must admit I overlooked the sarcasm, however.

The comments section gives me intense astroturfing vibes, especially the way it abruptly starts and stops between 2014.

Edit: Although the negative comments stop too. Maybe people were just more passionate about yoghurt a decade ago.

> In a practical world this is an outrageously useless platitude.

As an industry we went from treating engagement as an art form, to treating it as an optimisation problem. Along the way we got very, very good at it, at scale. While profitable, we now know that the methods used to drive this engagement are harmful. Many countries recognise this harm and have introduced legislation to limit or ban methods used on vulnerable groups, such as children.

It is interesting that we, as an industry, do not talk more about the harm we are complicit in causing. Somewhere along the way we normalised and accepted the idea that addicting features are desirable, and that we are not responsible for the consequences.

With all said, an industry is not an individual. You and I may care about this problem, but it is not clear how to fix it. At the very least, as individuals it would be good to avoid contributing to addicting features as a matter of principle wherever the opportunity arises, lest we become the equivalent of digital drug dealers.

While the analogy they offered may not be a good fit, I agree with the sentiment. My takeaway was not that addicts have zero agency or ability to help themselves, but that it's unethical to rely on this as the sole mechanism for minimising harm.

Not the original commenter, but I have often been asked by non-technical colleagues to answer questions about a spreadsheet they've sourced from someone/somewhere else. "So-and-so shared this spreadsheet with me. Can you please take a look at let me know if ...". Sometimes this is delegation, but frequently comes down to a lack of skill.