No Vehicles in the Park

_petronius

Cool concept; lots of valence to each question: - What counts as "in the park" - What counts as a "vehicle" - If it is both a vehicle and in the park, is justified ? - Is a justified violation of the rules still to be considered a violation?

cirrhosis

The choice of names (Tyrone vs Brett) made me wonder whether this was an experiment about racial prejudice. Edit: yes this is explained at the end of the article after the quiz. It's still a confounding factor.

kristofferc

This felt very easy. And yes, a police car in the park violates the rule, but police are allowed to violate rules in certain cases.

lifestyleguru

For Mediterranean people: "Francesca drives her car into the park with hazards lights on" Does this violate the rule?

po1nt

I thought this was about AI alignment. But the analogy could still work

thinkingemote

Previously: 2023 1K comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36453856 ---- Fun game! I like how even if you know the "rules" and try to play against or with them, it still is a challenge.

m0op

i really liked this small project :) made me think.

pablogancharov

Did anyone tried jev on this?

benrutter

I liked this as an idea, and I agree with the point at the end that content moderation is quite difficult. That said, I'm not sure the game proved the point it intended to, for me at least. My answers agreed 89% with the majority, and more importantly, on the visualization showing proportions of people classifying various examples as "a vehicle in the park" had a clear cut off point, before which I hadn't classified anything as a violation, and after which, I had classified everything as a violation. The suggestion is (I'm not saying this is proven, only suggested), to me at least, that if you gave people the instructions: > No vehicles are allowed in the park. A wagon being pulled is not a vehicle, but a rowboat is. A very high number would come to the exact same determination as me. Just for context, I'm just talking about the game itself, I definitely agree that moderation is a very tricky issue full of grey areas, and we'd all find it very hard to agree fully on a set of guidelines and then agree on when they're being enforced correctly.

chrisbuc

From a data management point of view, I have a similar question about a hypothetical sign that reads "Customer parking only" - Am I a customer when I go into the shop? - How about if I don't buy anything this time? - When I receive a marketing email from the shop, based on my previous purchases, am I still a customer? - How about 1 year later and I haven't bought anything, am I still a customer? So when can I park there? (obviously in the real world, there would be terms and conditions, but it's an interesting way to talk to clients about definitions in their data)

anonymous908213

Not interesting even as a thought experiment. From context, "vehicle" is clearly inferred to mean "automobile" rather than literally "vehicle". All of the subsequent pedantry about vehicles then misses the point, because the common understanding is that you clearly meant automobiles. It is weird one can be so pedantic and yet fail to draw the obvious connection that the word is effectively substituted for a different word in context. Surely one could come up with a better example to use for your game.

jstanley

I think the most interesting finding from this is that some people experience their sense of what should be allowed so strongly that it blinds their sense of whether a particular action technically violates a particular rule.

davemullenjnr

This was an awful experience on mobile fwiw

NSUserDefaults

I wonder if the averages would move if it said “you are a policeman and your performance will be judged based on your decisions”.

My_Name

To me a vehicle carries a human or goods on the ground and movement is generated via mechanical action, powered by either by a motor or a human being. Motorbike, car, cycle, rowboat. Pushing or pulling the object without a mechanism does not count as these are just extensions of 'pedestrian', buggy, wagon, skateboard, ice skates. If it does not carry a human it does not count. Toy car, drone. If it is not touching the park, it is not 'on the park'. Commercial airliner, ISS. A non functioning object that used to be a vehicle is now art or a monument, so long it has been approved to be in the park as such. Otherwise it is littering. Emergency vehicles are exempt, like police or ambulance.

skyflyer97

To me this shows how even a simple prompt can be complicated. Not necessarily in the context of content moderation, but in general. I've been working as a software developer for a while now, and this feels a lot like when a customer says I want feature A and I have to ask 20 more questions to filter out edge-cases the customer hadn't thought of yet.

My_Name

Interesting that less than half of people think a cycle is a vehicle. In the UK it is legally a vehicle and the rider has to obey all the rules that other vehicles have to obey, road signs, speed limits, red lights etc.

GodelNumbering

Conceptually very interesting and revealing, but I found it frustrating being forced to binarize the outcome without sufficient context (ill-posed). A lot of those questions have both valid yes and no answers, depending on the context.

realty_geek

I jumped at this because I I've been thinking about clarifying rules a lot. Actually, I have been thinking about clarifying beliefs but it's similar. When someone tells you what they believe in they might think it is clear but a little digging will show how ambiguous any moral or religious proclamation is. I have been trying hard to figure out a way to force people to be explicit about their beliefs. What I came up with is https://forgemybeliefs.etewiah.workers.dev/ . Would love some feedback about how I can improve it.

abrax3141

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it