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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

#231
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current picture is that there is an emerging class distinction between writing (and writers) that use genai vs. writing that does not. As soon as the "this sounds like an LLM" allergy kicks in, the writing instantly gets relegated to a low-status bucket in the reader's mind. It's not a purity test, it's as the author is communicating they don't care whether the reader has any signals of what is accurate vs inac…

I'm afraid I don't understand this - can I ask what was the sibling comment? Maybe that will help me triangulate.

This[1] comment, mostly in terms of not knowing which parts are generated and which not when not disclosed, which puts an added burden on the reader to assess.

Like, if some non-controversial article makes a statement about something technical (where one's guard isn't already raised) but you've observed signs of LLM use (without any disclosure of to what degree) then instead of thinking it might be an interesting thing to follow-up on or remember one might be thinking instead 'is this something the author themselves understands and has reviewed for accuracy or slipped in by the LLM' and other such distractions (and legwork if wanting to try and fact-check such things on the spot).

It goes from having a perhaps pleasurable, educational read to questioning and being more skeptical/cynical about the material. HN's guidelines meanwhile encourage good faith engagement, which is challenging.

Edit: corrected permalink (had accidental extra digit).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48888422

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

#232
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a nested-enough subthread that I can say whatever I want because no one will ever link to it because if they do no one will care. The class of comments you're talking about—not just ones that say "clanker" literally but the more general category—is particle-wave undecidable right now. If the commenter is right—i.e. if the commenter they are castigating actually did post LLM-generated text—then it's a communit…

I don't envy the position you're in. I think the decision to ban AI submissions is a good one, but ultimately it's going to create this conflict for some time, maybe a really long time until things stabilize around AI in the broader culture I hope eventually AI usage does become a taboo, at least in some fields. Creative fields should be for creative humans, not people who can't even publish an article without the he…

Ok, but we're not talking about all AI usage. We're talking about using AI to process text that gets published for others to read.

There are tons of ways to use AI that don't intersect with that.

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

#233
post #94

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…

Put it this way, if the ai article is indeed so good, why store the article in a dusty long form output mode from a soon to be obsolete model? Just give us the prompt, and in 6 months with some newer, bigger, better model, we can feed that prompt and get an even better article out of it.

The fallacy here is that you can't reduce the wide range of things that “AI generated” means into a single flag. As for why not “show us the prompt”: https://sgnt.ai/p/prompt-is-not-the-work/

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

#234
I made a personal extension just for that :) if I find a person to be mostly posting AI generated information I will blacklist them from my feed.

Works on a personal level, unsure if this would work well in practice. Maybe just a tag is enough, so people can conclude for themselves.

I know there are extensions out there that are doing the democratic part right. Mostly YouTube-related extensions like DeArrow and SponsorBlock

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

#236
post #213
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.co…

(Apologies if you've commented on the following already, but I've not seen it.) The most concerning growing trend I see is comments that don't violate any guidelines, but are flagged to dead. I'm not talking about posters that are shadowbanned, but about comments that engaged thoughtfully on a topic but the rest of the thread disagreed emphatically with. I also don't even mean controversial takes on hot-button issues…

> comments that don't violate any guidelines, but are flagged to dead.

Vouch them and/or email to hn@ycombinator.com and say why you think they deserve to be [undead].

I see that a lot, some have been erroneously caught by the real time AI detect filter (which actually isn't too bad at slicing out the actual AI gen comments) others have gone hard against the zeitgeist.

I've had the mods reinstate comments that I've thoroughly disagreed with but were making their best case for an opposing view - the threads are better with the best arguments forward for all sides of the elephant.

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

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why we see so many "just show me the prompt" responses, along with others like this Many are quite a bit more subtle, like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48844062 The more subversive undercurrent is interesting to me. People intentionally fucking with someone's bot, burning tokens for the lulz.

If someone were so dumb they didn’t understand the method used in the link… mind explaining?

Oh, there's a non sequitir in the parent comment that gives away some kind of leaky context situation, and the commenter is just replying with the same very generic "please elaborate" that we all throw at a language model from time to time. Not because anyone cares what the random text generator has to say, just because it's funny to light a few thousand tokens on fire.

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

#238
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…

If AI-generated comments are disallowed, why are AI-generated articles allowed? Seems like they have the same issues.

It's a fair question and I don't have a good answer yet, other than to say that comment content and article content are two very different spheres.

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

#239
post #53
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…

>in a world where the difference between human trained to talk like an AI and AI masquerading as human

I was once accused of using AI for writing in the voice of a depressed character because the character had a certain emotional detachment that to the person lodging the accusation indicated AI.

In short it is not just specific phrasing or words but also aesthetic effects that mean one is AI nowadays.

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

#240
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 find PG's article so dismissive.

I know several people that have difficulty writing but are still f*cking smart. So what, they should refrain from using AI to help them because the AI police says so?

But yeah, let's continue classifying people based on their outer qualities and habits... History showed us were this leads us to.

And here an em dash -- to freak out the AI police.

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