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Comment by zdragnar | Hacker News Reader

Lawyers have gotten into trouble using chatGPT for legal research because it hallucinated court cases.

I'm certainly not trusting what a random person on the Internet says it came up with.

That isn't to say the core assertion is wrong, but that I'll immediately dismiss one for which "chatGPT said" is the primary evidence.

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I didn’t say that ChatGPT said. I said I used ChatGPT as a search engine because it’s incredibly easy and slightly better than Google. And then I visited the links it gave me to see the primary and secondary sources.

Again, the only reason we’re having this conversation as though there’s a debate here is that people have decided to believe in one inaccurate version of the world instead of using the extensive tools available to figure out what’s going on. This level of conversation is fine for Reddit, it’s embarrassing for HN where having an accurate mental model of the world (and a willingness to learn an update) is kind of essential.

HN is a place where you typically post links to sources that support your claim. We could all Google it (or ChatGPT it), but we may not come out with the same results. Why not post your sources so that we can discuss a common set of evidence?

HN is also a place that is intended to be a place that promotes intellectual curiosity rather than argument. When the evidence is this extensive and easily accessible, the decision to argue about it reflects intransigence and an unwillingness to be curious.

I genuinely don’t care about being right on the Internet or HN karma, I would be genuinely happy if one reader/participant in this argument came out of it thinking “huh, I can actually do better than this.”

The good folks here have absolutely demonstrated intellectual curiosity - that's what all the requests for prompt details and links are. Your refusal to simply provide them, especially after opening with what boils down to "ChatGPT told me...", and choice to get all smug and self-righteous when pressed, does not imply that you actually have the best handle on HN culture.

When you write hundreds of words to avoid typing twelve or so into a search engine, you’re not pursuing intellectual curiosity. I’m happy to die on this hill because it’s so completely absurd, and because I’m curious about what pathology is causing people even to argue about this.

You'll have to forgive me that this line:

> so I visited ChatGPT and asked if there are documented cases in the UK where these things have happened, and I was met with a deluge of well-documented cases

does indeed sound exactly like you were using chatGPT as a primary source rather than a search engine, and thus are being met with cynicism.

I urge you to re-read the original unedited post to see if there are any words in it about the fact that I checked those sources. :)

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