> Or a chrome extension that takes HN comments and transforms them all to be kinder
I was about to start working on something like this. I would like to try browsing the internet for a day, where all comments that I read are rewritten after passing through a sentiment filter. If someone says something mean, I would pass the comment through an LLM with the prompt: "rewrite this comment as if you were a therapist, who was reframing the commenter's statement from the perspective that they are expressing personal pain, and are projecting it through their mean comment"
I find 19 times out of 20, that really mean comments come from a place of personal insecurity. So if someone says: "this chrome extension is a dumb idea, anti-free speech, blah blah blah" , I would read: "commentor wrote something mean. They might be upset about their own perceived insignificance in the world, and are projecting this pain through their comment <click here to reveal original text>"
Also on my project list - the AntiAssholeFilter. It's so interesting the ways you could handle this. Personally, I would want to just transform the comment into something that doesn't even mention that that the commenter wrote a mean comment - if it has something of value just make it not mean, otherwise hide it.
A couple things are really interesting about this idea. First - it's so easy for the end-user to customize a prompt that you don't need to get it right, you just need to give people the scaffolding and then they can color their internet bubble whatever color they want.
Second, I think that just making all comments just a couple percent more empathetic could be really impactful. It's the sort of systemic nudge that can ripple very far.
I was about to start working on something like this. I would like to try browsing the internet for a day, where all comments that I read are rewritten after passing through a sentiment filter. If someone says something mean, I would pass the comment through an LLM with the prompt: "rewrite this comment as if you were a therapist, who was reframing the commenter's statement from the perspective that they are expressing personal pain, and are projecting it through their mean comment"
I find 19 times out of 20, that really mean comments come from a place of personal insecurity. So if someone says: "this chrome extension is a dumb idea, anti-free speech, blah blah blah" , I would read: "commentor wrote something mean. They might be upset about their own perceived insignificance in the world, and are projecting this pain through their comment <click here to reveal original text>"