Ask HN: Predicting Future from HN Submissions

Posted by yogrish on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @12:07AM
from the ask-hn dept.

Today, an intriguing idea crossed my mind. As an avid follower of the HN community for several years, I have had the privilege of witnessing groundbreaking technologies, significant events, and medical advancements long before they gained widespread recognition or entered the spotlight. Examples include witnessing the emergence of Blockchains, Cloud, 5G, LLaMA, ChatGPT, mRNA, and many more before they captured the public's attention. In my eyes, the HN community stands as technology Gurus, possessing an exceptional ability to predict the future of any technology that holds the potential to benefit humanity. I wonder, could HN potentially utilize an AI model or have a simple word cloud to forecast the upcoming buzz well in advance?

( 6 comments | 2 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: Predicting Future from HN Submissions by mikewarot on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @01:02AM (#36305619)

Go back and look at the predictions for the next decade made at the start of 2020[1], none of them seriously mention Covid, there were only a few "there will be a plague somewhere" near misses of the thousand+ predictions.

Thus, HN doesn't seem to be a good predictive tool.

It is, however, a great source of wisdom and analysis.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21941278

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Predicting Future from HN Submissions by krapp on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @04:59AM (#36307502)

And in terms of technology specifically, HN is too cynical and curmudgeonly to ever find itself ahead of the curve, or even aware of the state of the art much of the time. Most of HN's predictions are obvious extrapolations, wishful thinking or blithe dismissals of whatever the kids think is cool.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Predicting Future from HN Submissions by neovialogistics on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @01:23AM (#36305790)

My gut tells me that sentiment analysis of all sentences containing keywords for certain regions/nations/commodities/technologies would pay off more than doing it for companies/derivatives.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Predicting Future from HN Submissions by jstx1 on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @04:29AM (#36307284)

When it comes to tech HN tends to be bearish on some useful things just because they also happen to be hyped up (Kubernetes, machine learning), and overvalue tech which is rarely used in the real world (obscure programming languages).

> the HN community stands as technology Gurus

It's a more polite reddit with some focus on tech, and maybe startups. It's nice but you don't need to put people on a pedestal, anyone can post here.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Predicting Future from HN Submissions by revskill on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @07:32AM (#36308615)

HN submission is simple to understand: Hype the underrated, and blame the overrated.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Predicting Future from HN Submissions by solardev on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @11:03AM (#36311270)

Have you checked for a confirmation bias? HN predicts a lot of things -- as any self-selecting outspoken public group of nerds would -- but at what success rate?

[ Parent | on HN ]