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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

#31
post #16

Regarding 1, I think a) a sizeable fraction of voters are not able to recognize AI-generated text b) many who notice don't care, or are willing to overlook it if the premise is interesting enough. (The latter is true for me, on occasion) Maybe we need a two-dimensional voting system: good/bad, ai/human. I think the second axis could cut down on meta-discussions over how much of the article was AI-generated.

Why do we need anything more than good/bad?

If there is a great post on a topic and the author used AI when generating it, what’s so bad about that?

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

#32
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have “flag”

As far as I understand, "flagging" is intended for things that break the guidelines. AI-generated content is explicitly banned, but only in comments, not submissions. I think it would be great if AI-generated submissions were outright banned as they fundamentally break the balance of effort that HN was built upon, but as was already stated by another user, YC is heavily invested in AI so there's a conflict of interes…

Not posting for self promotion is in the guidelines. I have to assume anyone pushing out AI articles is primarily looking for traffic and self promotion, as they didn’t care enough about the topic to write their own opinion.

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

#33

A problem I see is that what someone may consider to be AI-generated actually isn't. And the AI checkers aren't reliable enough to definitely enough say something is AI-generated.

Yup, and calling out a human-written article as AI-generated would be a serious insult. AI-flagging would incur bigger damage to the community than just having AI-generated contents around.

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

#34

That will only further increase the stigma surrounding LLMs. On Lobsters it actually got to the point where I no longer felt welcome on the site, even though I don't use LLMs to generate articles. The constant "this is AI slop" commentary is noisy and tiresome as well.

There absolutely needs to be stigma surrounding LLM generated work that is masquerading as creativity.

AI slop is AI slop.

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

#35
post #16

Regarding 1, I think a) a sizeable fraction of voters are not able to recognize AI-generated text b) many who notice don't care, or are willing to overlook it if the premise is interesting enough. (The latter is true for me, on occasion) Maybe we need a two-dimensional voting system: good/bad, ai/human. I think the second axis could cut down on meta-discussions over how much of the article was AI-generated.

Why do we need anything more than good/bad? If there is a great post on a topic and the author used AI when generating it, what’s so bad about that?

Different people weight the slop factor differently, which is the main source of pain at the moment. (For example, another top-level comment in this thread suggests banning AI-generated content outright)

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

#36
This makes sense if AI articles are bad or low quality, but what if one day, the AI generated content is actually good? As good or even better than what any human creates?

Is it purely just a "human supremacist" desire that fuels the motivation to ban or block such articles?

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

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no longer a downvote on submissions.

Do you know the reason? Allowing down voting on comments but not on submissions?

This could be a false memory, but I think it’s the idea that the submission downvotes should be reserved for things that break the rules, and in that case, the post should be flagged instead.

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

#38
This is something that works better on paper in practice. Namely, there are a hell of a lot of false positives of AI use which frequently causes shitstorms on social media where someone says "AI?" in bad faith and now the OP has to defend themselves and in the case of writing a blog post there aren't as concrete ways to defend yourself. (no, demanding the edit history of the post is not reasonable)

Hacker News adopting such a feature would likely do more harm than good.

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

#40

I'm of the deepest conviction AI-generated text should not show up at all. Proving that however can be difficult (obvious LLM tells aside). Requiring evidence of authentic human authorship is also difficult, though increasingly I lean towards communities where that is a given for any legitimate shares.

What qualifies as AI generated? If a human writes it then has AI improve/fix it, does that count?

How do you tell which is the case?

If we don't allow AI help at all, is that perhaps discriminating against those who don't feel comfortable posting with imperfect English?

I agree in principle, but am concerned in implementation... I'm not sure we can be fair without high risk of discrimination

Edit: typo fix

Edit: or am I AI?! And making edits looks more legit.... (To be clear: I'm not, I play by rules)

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