I have a weird ability. Can you help me find a use for it?
If I see a YouTube video pop up in my feed right after it’s published, I can often come up with a comment that gets a lot of likes and ends up near the top of the comment section.[1] It’s actually not that hard to do: the hardest part is being quick enough[2] to get into the first 10-30 comments (which I assume is the average number of comments viewers glance over), but the comment itself might be pretty generic and not that relevant to the video’s content.
Do you know a way I could use that? You can suggest advice for achieving convergent instrumental goals, usual human goals, and (most importantly) AI x-risk reduction. If you think I’m hyper-online or delusional about this, you can also point it out.
I also suspect that the YouTube algorithm might have learned about this ability of mine and has now categorized me as a “top commenter,” so it shows me videos earlier than others and uses me to “boost engagement” or smth.
The general principle is that sufficiently smart people by default win most competitions among 100 randos (given sufficient training, when that’s at all relevant) that they care to enter.
How many degrees of freedom do you have in which comment you post? Do highly upvoted comments boost a video’s reach? Do you have an example of a comment that was useful in the way Community Notes are on X?
Not much right now. I usually just write the first thing that comes to mind. But I think I can train myself to write comments with a specific message or intended effect. What I need is to understand which effect might be useful.
I’m not sure, I don’t have statistics on that, and I would assume information like this is kept secret.
I definitely remember authors responding to correctional comments by changing the description, pinning comments, and making clarification videos.
It’s actually not that hard to do: the hardest part is being quick enough[2] to get into the first 10-30 comments (which I assume is the average number of comments viewers glance over), but the comment itself might be pretty generic and not that relevant to the video’s content.
This confirms my view that YouTube comments are never worth reading.
Link to other content at the end, as if like a tagline. e.g.
“Today’s link: [Rob Miles video]”
You might think “basically nobody’s gonna click that, and even if they do, they won’t car.”. This is partially true, but consider: I got into the ratsphere because of HPMOR. I read HPMOR because of a Reddit comment that mentioned it in reply to a comment/post about what would happen if Harry had a gun. I got to Reddit because CGP Grey made a video about it.
The people you want most are more likely to stick like glue—you just need to show them what’s out there. Before HPMOR, I remember loving CGP Grey’s read of Fable of the Dragon Tyrant. If I had clicked the description and followed the link to Nick Bostrom’s original, maybe I’d have read some of his other work.
Relatedly, he’s probably introduced millions to voting theory or gerrymandering or AI being grown and it being transformative (back a decade ago when it wasn’t in the zeitgeist). While you won’t do that by commenting, you might introduce dozens.
My suspicions match your footnotes—this is probably accidental and fragile, so attempting to mess with it to get other dimensions of value (in propagating ideas orthogonal to the video, or monetizing, or influencing anything) is going to make it go away.
That said, it’d be interesting to measure and see if there IS a unique/special value—some tracking of popularity of videos that you comment on, then a randomization of NOT commenting on some things you were about to (literal coin flip or other no-judgement procedure) and tracking if the comments impact the popularity of the video would give you a bit of signal that the comment IS providing value in some way, which you could then figure out how to exploit.
Partner with an onlyfans model, make a YouTube account for promoting her, use a thirsttrappy avatar for it, and post those comments using that account. Don’t forget to promote her onlyfans in that YouTube account.
I have a weird ability. Can you help me find a use for it?
If I see a YouTube video pop up in my feed right after it’s published, I can often come up with a comment that gets a lot of likes and ends up near the top of the comment section.[1] It’s actually not that hard to do: the hardest part is being quick enough[2] to get into the first 10-30 comments (which I assume is the average number of comments viewers glance over), but the comment itself might be pretty generic and not that relevant to the video’s content.
Do you know a way I could use that? You can suggest advice for achieving convergent instrumental goals, usual human goals, and (most importantly) AI x-risk reduction. If you think I’m hyper-online or delusional about this, you can also point it out.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually not that hard and my success is just a consequence of being hyper-online.
I also suspect that the YouTube algorithm might have learned about this ability of mine and has now categorized me as a “top commenter,” so it shows me videos earlier than others and uses me to “boost engagement” or smth.
The general principle is that sufficiently smart people by default win most competitions among 100 randos (given sufficient training, when that’s at all relevant) that they care to enter.
How many degrees of freedom do you have in which comment you post? Do highly upvoted comments boost a video’s reach? Do you have an example of a comment that was useful in the way Community Notes are on X?
Not much right now. I usually just write the first thing that comes to mind. But I think I can train myself to write comments with a specific message or intended effect. What I need is to understand which effect might be useful.
I’m not sure, I don’t have statistics on that, and I would assume information like this is kept secret.
I definitely remember authors responding to correctional comments by changing the description, pinning comments, and making clarification videos.
This confirms my view that YouTube comments are never worth reading.
Link to other content at the end, as if like a tagline. e.g.
“Today’s link: [Rob Miles video]”
You might think “basically nobody’s gonna click that, and even if they do, they won’t car.”. This is partially true, but consider: I got into the ratsphere because of HPMOR. I read HPMOR because of a Reddit comment that mentioned it in reply to a comment/post about what would happen if Harry had a gun. I got to Reddit because CGP Grey made a video about it.
The people you want most are more likely to stick like glue—you just need to show them what’s out there. Before HPMOR, I remember loving CGP Grey’s read of Fable of the Dragon Tyrant. If I had clicked the description and followed the link to Nick Bostrom’s original, maybe I’d have read some of his other work.
Relatedly, he’s probably introduced millions to voting theory or gerrymandering or AI being grown and it being transformative (back a decade ago when it wasn’t in the zeitgeist). While you won’t do that by commenting, you might introduce dozens.
My suspicions match your footnotes—this is probably accidental and fragile, so attempting to mess with it to get other dimensions of value (in propagating ideas orthogonal to the video, or monetizing, or influencing anything) is going to make it go away.
That said, it’d be interesting to measure and see if there IS a unique/special value—some tracking of popularity of videos that you comment on, then a randomization of NOT commenting on some things you were about to (literal coin flip or other no-judgement procedure) and tracking if the comments impact the popularity of the video would give you a bit of signal that the comment IS providing value in some way, which you could then figure out how to exploit.
Partner with an onlyfans model, make a YouTube account for promoting her, use a thirsttrappy avatar for it, and post those comments using that account. Don’t forget to promote her onlyfans in that YouTube account.
IIUC, those are just bots who copy early and liked comments. So my comment would also be copied by other bots.
Could you show some examples and/or say how you come up with a comment that gets a lot of likes?
They are mostly like “wow, what a great [particular detail in the video]”. Sometimes it’s a joke I thought of.