I have zero financial stake in Anthropic and more broadly my career is more threatened by LLM-assisted vulnerability research (something I do not personally do serious work on) than it is aided by it, but I understand that the first principal component of casual skepticism on HN is "must be a conflict of interest".

You still haven't answered why I should care that you, a stranger on the internet, believes some unsubstantiated hearsay?

Take a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

The user you're suspicious of is pretty well-known in this community.

How is this whole comment chain not a textbook case of "argument from authority"? I claim A, a guys says. Why would I trust you somebody else responds. Well he's pretty well known on the internet forum we're all on, the third guy says, adding nothing to the conversation.

I am very lovable.

:| iyho?

I don't think it's debatable.

Do you have a letter of recommendation?

Very several.

wow, very cute reply.

also love that mods dont step in and instead they leave the comment flagged.

ridiculous.

It is an argument of authority but that's not always a bad thing. I think it's a bit out of keeping with the supposed point of this site (ie intellectual inquiry) but when it comes to rapidly evolving technologies like this one it can still add value on the whole.

We saw quite a number of previously respectful members get a glaze over their eyes with LLMs. If they also work for the company making claims, this makes it even more untrustworthy

[delayed]

Someone's credibility cannot be determined by their point counts. Holy fuck is that not a way to evaluate someone in the slightest. Points don't matter.

Instead look at their profile...

Points != creds. Creds == creds.

Don't be fucking lazy and rely on points, especially when they link their identity.

I wasn't at all saying that points = credibility. I was saying that points = not unknown. Enough people around here know who he is, and if he didn't have credibility on this topic he'd be getting down voted instead of voted to the top.

Is that meaningfully different? If you read malfist's point as "tptacek's point isn't valuable because it's from some random person on the internet" then the problem is "random person on the internet" = "unknown credentials". In group, out group, notoriety, points, whatever are not the issue.

I'll put it this way, I don't give a shit about Robert Downy Jr's opinion on AI technology. His notoriety "means nothing to anybody". But instead, I sure do care about Hinton's (even if I disagree with him).

malfist asked why they should care. You said points. You should have said "tptacek is known to do security work, see his profile". Done. Much more direct. Answers the actual question. Instead you pointed to points, which only makes him "not a stranger" at best but still doesn't answer the question. Intended or not "you should believe tptacek because he has a lot of points" is a reasonable interpretation of what you said.

Pointing to the profile leads someone on the path of understanding why to trust tptacek on security issues. Pointing to his points on HN explains why lots of users here already know that he's credible in this area and will recognize his username and upvote his comments on this topic and know better than to blindly accuse him of being a just a random person on the internet.

The problematic, ignorant comment that has been flagged asserted that what tptacek says "means nothing to anybody else", which is a very wrong statement about his role in the HN community.

I don't get your argument. That everyone should know and recognize our community celebrities? That seems really out of touch. Given the age of their profile I'm assuming they just spend more time touching grass.

Either way I'm not sure what your point is. You didn't answer their question. The one you replied to. I you're in defensive mode but no need to defend, I'm not going to respond anymore.

ooof, you hate to see it (they got you good)

  > but I understand that the first principal component of casual skepticism on HN is "must be a conflict of interest".

I think the first principle should be "don't trust random person on the internet"

(But if you think Tom is random, look at his profile. First link, not second)

A security researcher claiming that they’re not skeptical about LLMs being able to do part of their job - where is the financial stake in that?

I continually think it's amazing that every form of cynical comment on the internet consists of incorrectly claiming that someone is secretly making money from something.

(Most common form of this is misreading opensecrets and using it to claim that some corporation is donating to a political campaign.)