[HN Gopher] A mile-long lava tube where humans sheltered for tho...
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       A mile-long lava tube where humans sheltered for thousands of years
        
       Author : pseudolus
       Score  : 115 points
       Date   : 2024-04-18 00:54 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (gizmodo.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (gizmodo.com)
        
       | adolph wrote:
       | Source paper:
       | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
        
       | ncgl wrote:
       | The practice of rephrasing to get your word count up really irks
       | me.
       | 
       | "Today, wolves, foxes, and snakes inhabit the cave, but it was
       | once a popular spot for human pastoralists and their domesticated
       | animals."
       | 
       | "Rather, they think it was a convenient spot for herders to stop
       | and provide their flocks with shade and water."
       | 
       | "Even though humans didn't have a permanent presence in the lava
       | tube, the natural structure provided shelter for people and their
       | herds for thousands of years"
        
         | aster0id wrote:
         | The verbosity reminds me of ChatGPT generated text
        
           | temporalparts wrote:
           | Where did you think ChatGPT got their training data?
        
             | cj wrote:
             | Doesn't matter.
             | 
             | Generalizing topics and/or adding caveats about how
             | something may not always be true is the easiest way for a
             | LLM to increase the rate of providing factually accurate
             | responses (aside from refusing to answer). Both of those
             | strategies requires being more verbose.
             | 
             | Concise and to the point is not in the best interest of a
             | LLM designed to give decent answers 99% of the time.
        
               | mk_stjames wrote:
               | I also believe that OpenAI's RLHF process highly biased
               | the model towards producing that sort of specific
               | verbose, padded-out 'chatGPT speak' that we are seeing.
               | The RLHF fine tuning process took outputs from the
               | instruction-tuned model and A/B tested variations with
               | human workers who may or may not have had the same
               | feelings towards writing quality as many of us.
               | 
               | The process resulted in those verbose, interjection-laden
               | responses that we see now, because that type of response
               | was deemed 'better' (thumbs-up'd more) than the shorter,
               | more-direct-but-less-impressive-sounding responses.
        
               | philipswood wrote:
               | My chats usually start with:
               | 
               | >Hi again :wave:.
               | 
               | >As always I prefer terse replies.
               | 
               | >Let's <context of activity>
               | 
               | ><First question>
               | 
               | I usually then get short answers and then I query for
               | more info if required.
        
               | bigDinosaur wrote:
               | Set a custom instruction (I think only a ChatGPT paid
               | option?). But $20 a month or whatever is easily worth it
               | for the utility it provides.
        
         | whereistimbo wrote:
         | It is fine enough for me as my English skill is bad enough to
         | notice these things.
        
           | bugbuddy wrote:
           | to not* notice
        
         | cogman10 wrote:
         | Gotta have 8 paragraphs so they can squeeze in 20 ads.
        
           | seemaze wrote:
           | Maybe my dns blacklist needs updating, but the ads were so
           | bad I bailed.
        
             | walrus01 wrote:
             | ublock origin browser plugin and I saw zero ads
        
               | naikrovek wrote:
               | Congratulations
        
         | Simulacra wrote:
         | Maybe, it could also just be professional immaturity. It seems
         | more written by a college student than a seasoned journalist.
        
         | 082349872349872 wrote:
         | I don't know about you all, but rather than commercial
         | commentary I'd prefer if we submitted the papers:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40092285
        
         | mensetmanusman wrote:
         | The quality of news peaked about 20 years ago after search
         | killed monetization. There is no going back.
        
         | chickenchase-r wrote:
         | Gizmodo and anything gawker media is utter and total junk,
         | pushing Disney media and other hidden agenda. Was irked when I
         | accidentally clicked it, I block it on almost all my systems to
         | avoid feeding the beast.
        
         | barfbagginus wrote:
         | They're a gizmodo writer. An attention predator. If they cared
         | about producing genuine values for humanity, they would not be
         | working in attention predator journalism
         | 
         | Therefore don't expect their writing to improve from your
         | criticism. It's designed to take, not give.
         | 
         | I like to stop reading these kinds of authors as soon as I
         | realize I'm experiencing a memetic attention attack. Then I
         | write a snarky comment so others will start to hate them as
         | well.
        
       | ern wrote:
       | Spoiler alert: it was a shelter for people moving herds between
       | oases, and doesn't seem to have had a permanent population.
        
       | alex_young wrote:
       | "Humans sheltered for thousands of years" isn't quite right.
       | Humans stopped by and used this shelter from time to time for
       | thousands of years.
        
         | UberFly wrote:
         | "I've lived in my house for 20 years"
        
           | stoperaticless wrote:
           | Depepends, if you want to introduce ambiguitity or remove it.
        
       | mkl wrote:
       | The location:
       | https://www.google.com/maps/@25.5879436,39.7629388,1317m/dat...
       | 
       | If you zoom out there are a crapload of lava flows and volcanic
       | craters nearby. A bit to the east there is this landscape:
       | https://www.google.com/maps/@25.6327898,39.9400629,22944m/da...
        
         | seemaze wrote:
         | Reminds me of the Sierra Pinacate on the Sonora/Arizona border.
         | It has human history going back more than 20,000 years.
        
           | seemaze wrote:
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Pinacate_y_Gran_Desierto_.
           | ..
        
       | twobitshifter wrote:
       | Seems like it would make a good sietch.
        
       | KingOfCoders wrote:
       | Looks like Jabbas palace.
        
       | spurgu wrote:
       | I went to Cueva de los Verdes in Lanzarote (Canaries) somewhat
       | recently, it's 3.7 miles long (plus another mile under sea
       | level).
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueva_de_los_Verdes
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-20 23:02 UTC)