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Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

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Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#161

Post by glouwbug »

I wrote an internal engine combustion sim in C with what I'd assume is some pretty alright procedural audio generation and posted it to Show-HN (https://github.com/glouw/ensim4) with which I got 2 upvotes. I understand it's niche, but I thought HN loved this sorta demoscene stuff.

C'est la vie and que sera. I'm sure the artistic industry is feeling the same. Self expression is the computation of input stimuli, emotional or technical, and transforming that into some output. If an infallible AI can replace all human action, would we still theoretically exist if we're no longer observing our own unique universes?

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#162

Post by netdevphoenix »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #4

I am a major advocate for AI assisted development. Having said that, it used to feel part of an exclusive club to have the skills and motivation to put a finished project on HN. For me, posting a Show HN was a huge deal - usually done after years of development - remember that - when development of something worthwhile took years and was written entirely by hand? I don't mind much though - I love that programming is…

> For me, posting a Show HN was a huge deal - usually done after years of development

This is still possible. Vibe coders are just not interested in working on a piece of software for years till it's polished. It's a self selection pattern. Like the vast amount of terrible VB6 apps when it came out. Or the state of JS until very recently.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#163

Post by fuzzfactor »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #76
airstrike wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we need a Vibe HN

That may be something. Having too may subs could get out of hand, but sometimes you end up with so much paperwork generated so fast that it needs its own dedicated whole drawer in your filing cabinet ;)

Sorry about that, didn't mean to hurt anybody's feelings :(

It's still early and easy to underestimate the number of visitors who would absolutely love to have the main page more covered in absolute pure vibe than it is recently.

I would like to hear opinions as to why the non-human touch is preferred, that could add something that not many are putting into words.

Hopefully it's not a case of the lights being on but nobody's home :(

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#164

Post by 2001zhaozhao »

This is part of a bigger problem with vibe coding IMO. It's not just Show HN but signaling credentials in general. How would you signal that you actually put effort into your project on a resume or social event/presentation when others could just vibe-code some good looking but nonetheless unusable projects and show that off instead?

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#165

Post by yoyohello13 »

SCdF wrote: post #107
zero_shift wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the great benefits of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge. One of the great drawbacks of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge. It used to be that ShowHN was a filter: in order to show stuff, you had to have done work. And if you did the work, you probably thought about the problem, at the very least the pro…

Agreed, and were gonna see this everywhere that AI can touch. Our filter functions for books, video, music, etc are all now broken. And worst of all that breaking coincides with an avalanche of slop, making detection even harder. There is this real disconnect between what the visible level of effort implies you've done, and what you actually have to do. It's going to be interesting to see how our filters get rewired…

I have a sci-fi series I've followed religiously for probably 10 years now. It's called the 'Undying Mercenaries' series. The author is prolific, like he's been putting out a book in this series every 6 months since 2011. I'm sure he has used ghost writers in the past, but the books were always generally a good time.

Last year though I purchased the next book in the series and I am 99% sure it was AI generated. None of the characters behaved consistently, there was a ton of random lewd scenes involving characters from books past. There were paragraphs and paragraphs of purple prose describing the scene but not actually saying anything. It was just so unlike every other book in the series. It was like someone just pasted all the previous books into an LLM and pushed the go button.

I was so shocked and disappointing that I paid good money for some AI slop I've stopped following the author entirely. It was a real eye opener for me. I used to enjoy just taking a chance on a new book because the fact that it made it through publishing at least implied some minimum quality standard, but now I'm really picky about what books I pick up because the quality floor is so much lower than in the past.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#166

Post by amirmani »

Tanget but related, I posted on Who wants to be hired and, in comparison to last time I posted there 2019ish, I received only spam emails, no offers nothing at all. Luckily I used an alias for that post but I hate deleting it if anyone interested might come in

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#167

Post by nobody_r_knows »

anonymous908213 wrote: post #154

The worst part of the death of Show HN is that most of these people are so allergic to putting any effort in that they can't even write the description themselves. The repo's readme, the ShowHN post, and often even their comments will all be fully LLM-generated. This doesn't even take skill! Writing good marketing copy might take skill, but ShowHN isn't (supposed to be) marketing. Just describe the project in your ow…

> I promise it's not that hard.

How many non-native English speakers are on HN? If it's more than 30%, why should they have to use a whole new language if they can just let an LLM do it in a natural sounding way.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#169

Post by kjkjadksj »

nobody_r_knows wrote: post #167
anonymous908213 wrote: post #154

The worst part of the death of Show HN is that most of these people are so allergic to putting any effort in that they can't even write the description themselves. The repo's readme, the ShowHN post, and often even their comments will all be fully LLM-generated. This doesn't even take skill! Writing good marketing copy might take skill, but ShowHN isn't (supposed to be) marketing. Just describe the project in your ow…

> I promise it's not that hard. How many non-native English speakers are on HN? If it's more than 30%, why should they have to use a whole new language if they can just let an LLM do it in a natural sounding way.

I’d rather read broken english than LLM output.
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