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Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

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Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#101

Post by simonreiff »

visarga wrote: post #44
simonreiff wrote: post #12

The recent rule addition to the Guidelines says this: "Don't post generated text or AI-edited text. HN is for conversation between humans." And I think that covers comments, but I'd be happy to see it also cover articles that are blatantly and primarily if not exclusively AI-generated. But how much AI is permitted? For instance: I'm writing a blog post now. It's all mine. If I include an AI-generated cartoon at the e…

How about if you did part of your research with AI, then typed the text yourself?

That's a good question. My view is that AI-assisted research is an important and valid use, and getting human-written articles and papers is (I think) the whole point of this thread.

However, a lot of the academic or technical posts on this site have turned out to include AI hallucinations (a problem that is not just on HN, in fairness). If an article or paper contains nonexistent or obviously, blatantly wrong citations, then I feel very strongly that such content is disrespectful to the HN audience, certainly to me, because I've just wasted my time trying to take the author seriously only to discover that the argument was founded on a hallucination. In a sense, it doesn't matter to me whether the hallucination was due to AI or not -- if a person puts in bogus citations, AI-generated or otherwise, my view is that their article or paper fully deserves to be flagged so that we don't waste other people's time.

Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#102

Post by Barbing »

asdff wrote: post #79
avaer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope HN doesn't get into moderating the politics of articles. I can see a grim future (present?) where "AI generated" turns into a slur, warranted or otherwise, in a world where the difference between human trained to talk like an AI and AI masquerading as human becomes increasingly difficult to discern, and some hidden cabal passes judgement. That is wholly different from taking a stance on HN being a place for hu…

Why would humans ever be trained to talk like an AI? If they are working in some capacity where there is strong incentive to write llm-slop adjacent content, might as well use the llm slop generator.

  "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."
Now if one’s a language model…

(Subconscious training like when we pick up an accent, though eventually folks might automatically code switch - so that’s hopeful.)

Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#103

Post by kordlessagain »

asdff wrote: post #84
ryandrake wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO posting "This article is AI" does not add anything to the conversation. The HN guidelines[1] include: Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. and Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. I'd argue pointing out that you thi…

Flagged as AI is useful as it would mean I skip the article.

You could just ask your AI to flag it with an extension, or rewrite it in a style you prefer (or just do a good job summarizing the articles core meaning).

Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#104

Post by asdff »

minimaxir wrote: post #90
asdff wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would humans ever be trained to talk like an AI? If they are working in some capacity where there is strong incentive to write llm-slop adjacent content, might as well use the llm slop generator.

That's just LinkedIn.

Scrolling the general feed there makes me want to put a pencil in my eye

Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#105

Post by satisfice »

IgorPartola wrote: post #48

Nobody wants to label their stuff as AI generated because they removed credibility. Communities can flag posts as AI generated based on speculation and telltales but it won’t be 100% and will take extra work. I think the era of the blog is simply dead now and that’s mostly ok. Blogspam and corporate blogs had killed quality bogs ages ago even before AI was a thing. The real question is what replaces it. Oh and of cou…

If counterfeit or stolen cash is indistinguishable from real or honest cash, should you accept it? Should you spend it? No. Why? Because doing so erodes and potentially destroys society.

Whether you agree that a con artist is only a criminal if he gets caught, or you think he’s a criminal the whole time, surely you can see why many people might want to know if they are dealing with a friend and not something simulating a friend.

Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#106

Post by dang »

archagon wrote: post #72
matheusmoreira wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've accurately described the current state of Lobsters.

As opposed to wonderful old HN, where about 95% of the front page is now AI, AI-related, or AI-generated.

That's a high exaggeration of course, but in the wonderful old HN tradition of perceiving the site as dominated by $badness, where everyone has their own perception of $badness.

I'm not picking on you - it's practically a universal response, so much so that it must be driven by human hard-wiring. I've written about this so many times that for once I don't even know what to link to. Perhaps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098. Or maybe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48427800

Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#107

Post by [deleted] »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #71
avaer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope HN doesn't get into moderating the politics of articles. I can see a grim future (present?) where "AI generated" turns into a slur, warranted or otherwise, in a world where the difference between human trained to talk like an AI and AI masquerading as human becomes increasingly difficult to discern, and some hidden cabal passes judgement. That is wholly different from taking a stance on HN being a place for hu…

You've accurately described the current state of Lobsters.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#108

Post by [deleted] »

avaer wrote: post #53
dang wrote: post #42

We don't allow genai text on HN itself - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079 . How to enforce it is a separate question, of course, but the rule exists. We don't have a similar rule yet about article content but my sense is that the community mostly doesn't want to read it—or, to put it more conservatively, discounts it. This is why we see s…

I hope HN doesn't get into moderating the politics of articles. I can see a grim future (present?) where "AI generated" turns into a slur, warranted or otherwise, in a world where the difference between human trained to talk like an AI and AI masquerading as human becomes increasingly difficult to discern, and some hidden cabal passes judgement. That is wholly different from taking a stance on HN being a place for hu…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#109

Post by clickety_clack »

dang wrote: post #42

We don't allow genai text on HN itself - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079 . How to enforce it is a separate question, of course, but the rule exists. We don't have a similar rule yet about article content but my sense is that the community mostly doesn't want to read it—or, to put it more conservatively, discounts it. This is why we see s…

The tricky thing about tags is that we get a tag for genai this year, what about next year’s thing and the year after that? We’d end up with a list of tags attached haphazardly all over the place. Flagging with a box to add a reason sounds like an excellent idea.

Re: Ask HN: Add flag for AI-generated articles

#110

Post by minimaxir »

kordlessagain wrote: post #100
minimaxir wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity I looked through your post history to find an example of a time you got downvoted for calling out AI comments. The first one I could find was 3 months ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47493096 ), where you got downvoted for calling out an AI comment...to a comment that had zero common signs of AI writing. The OP then replied: > Not AI. Not sure how I feel getting my writing style called out…

Just the idea that something is AI is bothersome to some, and some AI content is genuinely useful and gets thrown out with the bathwater. Not saying all of it is useful, but there are shades of grey, not just black and white.

That isn't related to my comment? My comment is more criticizing accusing something of being AI based on vibes, and likely being wrong about it.
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