I say "was" in the title because I barely go on reddit anymore. I know reddit definitely still is a thing, and writing "was" doesn't make magically move Reddit to only be in the past, but reddit took up a huge chunk of my time last decade and so I say "was" in the hopes that it stirs my unconscious mind to think that it was, in fact, only something in my past, not the present.
Whew. So I still go on there, but only when I need a burning question answered (and Google hasn't , or when I feel like checking in on the gaming and lifestyle communities that I followed, practically on a daily basis, for years.
With this perspective, I think I have a good grasp on what Reddit truly is: (and it probably isn't what Aaron Swartz imagined and might have him rolling around in his grave) an AI training ground.
I have to note here that I haven't really researched or gone into too much depth on the inner workings of AI, Reddit, human psychology, or programming; this is just my perspective as a self-described former Reddit "addict" netizen's opinion that needed to get out of my head.
Yes, it's an AI training ground. Here's why:
I don't really know or care too much how it works; but I do know GPTs (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) need data.
Lots of it. And this data has to be "vouched" for, somehow - it has to be more than just bits, or 01010001s. It has to have meaning, and it has to make sense to humans.
From a spiritual perspective, you put some of what you are into what you write. That's something a good writer would say, right?
More and more, ChatGPT is entering the realm of public consciousness. My mom, surprisingly, seems to understand what ChatGPT is more than my dad, and seemed to catch pretty quickly what it can and cannot do. From my experience with it, my honest opinion is that it's simply a more convenient way to Google stuff. It sifts through so much mess for me that I'm finding that I'm starting to use it more than Google itself, which is saying something.
ChatGPT was used to help with the formatting of grammar in this post (literally "where to place a colon").
