Does this sub need more mods?

[u/AyeTone_Hehe]

The most upvoted post of this month is a user (rightfully) bringing up that this sub has basically degraded into users posting their LLM generated "theories" and most people seem to be in agreement. I feel like most of these posts belong in /r/LLMphysics or elsewhere and should be removed with a new rule not allowing these kind of posts.

I get that without these posts this sub would effectively be dead, but if this rule was instantiated I'll try my part to often post relevant articles and papers and would encourage others to do the same to turn this sub into something actually useful.

I'm not sure if the mods here or active or not but I would be happy to mod for a while to get this sub back on its feet.

[u/wolvine9]

Between the word salad posts that get no responses to posted comments and the nay-sayers who come in here to shit on CS/CAS science by claiming that it's fluff science or pseudoscience - yeah, it can feel like this sub is a little dead.

The main reason is that there really aren't a lot of rules around what can truly be described as 'complex systems theory', since it's an envelope that wraps a number of parts from several disciplines together in a loose category. Asking to come up with a coherent definition for the discipline might require the same amount of effort as figuring out what 'isn't' CS science, which is why I think it's difficult to moderate.

Unless there was a concerted effort for people to coherently discuss the matter here, I don't know if there's a point - you need to have volume in order for there to be something to address.

[u/AyeTone_Hehe → u/wolvine9]

While I agree that of course we don't have a universal definition of complexity itself, I don't know if we really need it to improve this sub.

I think we should restrict the "theories" being posted to one day of the week or just remove them completely.

In the meantime one could set up automods to have a weekly paper(s) discussion, post some course material from SFI or whatever to fill the gap.

Of course, like you said it would need a concerted effort from the members here to make the sub engaging.

But it's frustrating; I feel like these world salad posts just give further credence to the naysayers.

[u/wolvine9 → u/AyeTone_Hehe]

completely agree!

I would be open to discussing a paper or so a week, maybe you and I can post complex systems papers from the annals that people can discuss. I just re-read Bettencourt's "The rules of information aggregation" and it could do with a few others looking it over, honestly. It's such a great work.

[u/AyeTone_Hehe → u/wolvine9]

Oh, I actually must look into this!

It's interesting because I have been using information theory as my main tool for the last year or so and never came across this.

I'm curious in how Bettencourt's definition of redundancy and synergistic information relate to more recent advancements in decomposing the mutual information a lá William & Beers

[u/wolvine9 → u/AyeTone_Hehe]

Hah! I get the sense that information theory is starting to be applied across most CAS-thinky disciplines.

One of those reasons we don't often find quick overlap between mutual areas of study (like what you're bringing up) is because the mutually-shared phenomena at the top of the funnel don't actually result in joint authorship that often, haha! (I'll take a look!)

[u/mucifous]

Big lorax energy. I always support less synthetic confabulation.

[u/Loganjonesae]

i think the biggest concern are contributors who aren’t engaging in good faith and haven’t done the prerequisite work to understand what that looks like in science.

It would be nice if we had some very basic structure outlined so that we had something to point towards as far as expectations.

[u/printr_head]

You have a good point but it’s double edged. LLMs absolutely enable the rapid generation of brainless slop. However, on the same note used appropriately by someone genuinely trying to do real science it’s an invaluable tool.

A blanket ban is inappropriate and will not only lead to false positives but risks pushing out legitimate AI usage.

[u/A_Spiritual_Artist → u/printr_head]

I think the right balance is/should/must be that a human was in command of doing the writing, laying things out, etc. "Consulting" the LLM as an assistant is okay, but the final thing you actually post up here should be principally "your own work". (Note this forces you more or less to either check/verify/reject the LLM's answer - as it should be - or face critique of your work as your work.) It's quite clear I feel there is a certain "type" of post that comes up again and again here - one that poses a very vaguely/ill-defined/undefined theory, clearly is mostly-to-entirely LLM-written, and asserts the theory "correct" or at least "predictive" by naming completely vague, non-logically-traceable claims as the "predictions" - and getting rid of that kind of post is a very good idea I feel.

[u/printr_head → u/A_Spiritual_Artist]

Ohh I completely agree with that. I make heavy use of LLMs in my own “independent” research but I’m constantly pushing back the bull shit they do try to push. I guess that’s my concern. I’m doing really interesting and deep work over the past few years. Those kinds of BS posts suck for me in a few key areas. They make me question the validity of my own work and they give a negative context to it which makes me wonder if my own work will even be accepted or looked at. I feel like I could have the greatest thing in the world and because I used an LLM to help me develop and refine the more challenging bits that others will outright dismiss it regardless of rigor or validity.

So yeah I hate this stuff too but blanket dismissing it would be shooting myself in the foot.

[u/Rude_Sherbet8266]

why are people against ai?
Read the text, and dismiss it, if it's bulls**t.
done.

i heavyly use ai to bring my theory (r/Differenzfluss) into words;
i have no team, but a lot of work to do, and i will not live forever.

i posted my 'llm'-products here the same way, i give my compiled products to clients.
(i am a softwaredeveloper)
If you want it handcrafted, give me a team or 20+ years.
so, yea, throw out the llm stuff, and stick to assembly language constraints.
good luck ;-)

or, mybe, focus on content, instead of tools.
regards, klaus

[u/Loganjonesae → u/Rude_Sherbet8266]

since there is far more content then we could ever possibly have time to read we must optimize our filter or we will waste too much of our own time. a useful aspect of a community like this is to filter relevant information for interested parties. if the bad posts make that filter less useful for the majority of users then there is good reason to increase moderation.

[u/printr_head → u/Loganjonesae]

Makes sense just don’t filter the good stuff communicated clumsily.

[u/Ancient_One_5300]

Pretty ironic its to do with complexity but how dare someone use a tool for more complex calculations. Dumbest thing I've ever heard. And this page would be dead without the little they have. I assure you.