I have a kid with severe written language issues, and the utilisation of STT w/ a LLM-powered edit has unlocked a whole world that was previously inaccessible.
What is amazing is it would have remained so just a couple of years ago!
Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
51–60 of 1001 posts
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#52The only question is is the entity interesting and/or correct. Those properties are in the eye of the beholder. If they're human or not is beside the point.
After all, no one knows I'm a dog.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#53I would amend to: "Don't post comments that are not human originated at this time. We want to see your human opinion shine through." This gives people some amount of leeway and allows just rhe right amount of exceptions that prove the rule. (That said, to be frank, some of the newer better behaved models are sometimes more polite and better HN denizens than the actual humans. This is something you're going to have to…
Why would "human originated" be a better place to draw the line than "no generated/AI-edited comments"?
Like, I'm sure that AIs technically can write non-crap HN comments, but they rarely do. Even if it was less rare, the community that resulted from fostering AI-generated content would be unappealing to a lot of people, myself included. The fact that information here is the result of real people with real human opinions conversing is at least as important to me as the content being posted.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#54Meanwhile, the top comment on one of the most upvoted submissions today is AI generated by an LLM account:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47334694
Most people don't seem to care.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#55[deleted]
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#56HN only supports English so it should be allowed for anyone using LLMs for translation.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#57Agree, AI generated articles & comments provide little to none value other than the original prompt. Please just post the original prompt instead.
I only disagree a little. It's that sometimes there is a discussion about AI itself where "I prompted X with Y and it output Z" can add to the convo.
But those are pretty specific cases (For example, discussing AI in healthcare). That's about the only time where I think it's reasonable to post the AI output so it can be analyzed/criticized.
What's not helpful is I've been hit by users who haven't disclosed that they are just using AI. It takes a few back and forths before I realize that they are just a bot which is annoying.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#58Don’t be afraid to make grammar mistakes or misspell stuff. Others will understand. You’re a human after all. That’s okay to make mistakes and feel uncomfortable with that.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#59I appreciate this being added to the guidelines.
That said, I also wouldn't hate seeing an official playground where it is cordoned / appreciated for bots to operate. I.E., like Moltbook, but for HN...? I realize this could be done by a third party, but I wouldn't hate seeing Ycombinator take a stab at it.
Maybe that's too experimental, and that would be better left to third parties to implement (I'm guessing there's already half a dozen vibe-coded implementations of this out there right now) -- it feels more like the sort of thing that could be an interesting (useful?) experiment, rather than something we want to commit to existing in-perpetuity.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#60Agree, AI generated articles & comments provide little to none value other than the original prompt. Please just post the original prompt instead.
Here is where I'd like to push back just a little.
Not all AI prompting is expanding the prompt.
What if the original prompt is 1000 words, includes 10 scientific articles by reference (boosting it up to 10000) , and the AI helps to boil it down to 100 words instead?
I'd argue that this is probably a rather more responsible usage of the tools. And rather more pleasant to read besides.
Whether it meets the criterion is another thing. But at least don't assume that the original prompt is always better or shorter!