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How much of HN is AI?

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Re: How much of HN is AI?

#151

Post by kogasa240p »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #109
yndoendo wrote: post #81

AI has turned me away from HN more and more. Most of the content is about using some data center based ML provider. My view is how so many ignore the environmental harm these constructs are doing; increasing ambient temperatures, inducing heavy metals into the water table, decreasing the access to water for human consumption in numerous drought areas, hostel ambient noise ... The wealth who are the majority finical b…

I really wish there was a way to filter out discussions about AI on HN. It feels like lately they take up a good 1/3 of posts on the front page. I don't want to hear about some new AI startup.

Having a set of tag presets would help somewhat for filtering.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#152

Post by bilkow »

writtenone wrote: post #76
rapnie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix works fine for the friend to friend, small community things. Discourse forums too. Use Signal for family and friends, perhaps work. Fediverse and Atmosphere (Bluesky) for your microblog needs, and RSS to keep track of blogs.

Having used Matrix for almost a decade, it's hot garbage. Sync is barely working, "unable to decrypt" still exists, the encryption is flawed [0] and the whole thing is effectively just Element and everyone else follows their lead. [0]: https://soatok.blog/2026/02/17/cryptographic-issues-in-matri...

About the post you linked, see [1] and [2], which makes me question both whether that is an actual vulnerability (Signal, the messenger recommended by the author, also didn't have that check, and it's addition is absent from release notes and CVEs) and whether the post was made in good faith (the check was added to libsignal on the same day that the author disclosed the vulnerability to Matrix, which can be a coincidence, but doesn't seem likely given that the code has been there for years).

Can't speak about the other issues, I haven't had those but I barely use it. Based on comments, it's clear they exist or have existed for quite some time.

[1] https://blog.erinshepherd.net/2026/02/non-contributory-keys-...

[2] https://matrix.org/blog/2026/02/analysis-of-reported-issues-...

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#153

Post by thephyber »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #124
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even care about the environmental aspect- it's just so...un-hackerlike and boring. Where are all the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels?

Not in Silicon Valley tech lol!

Your parent is referring to a nostalgia for the Silicon Valley hacker ethos from the 1980s.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#154

Post by latexr »

bitwize wrote: post #142
latexr wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lobsters has a funny obsession with being anti-AI, but the most commented posts on the front page are usually AI related. The top five most filtered-out tags¹, excluding meta², are (in order): vibecoding, dotnet, php, emacs, ai. Two of the five are AI-related. The top spot (vibecoding) has 60% more people filtering it than the second spot. ¹ https://lobste.rs/filters ² In the sense of being about the website itself…

Wait, how is Emacs AI-related aside from being written in Lisp?

It’s not. Neither is php or dotnet. I meant to write “two of the five”, not “three of the five”. Fixed. Sorry about the confusion.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#155

Post by qarl2 »

dgellow wrote: post #149
qarl2 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of the article seems to be surprised. As well as many people in these comments.

Nothing in the article is expressing surprise

"That said, the recent shift feels more profound: almost every day, it feels that the lineup is dominated by stories focused on AI, written by AI, or commented on by AI."

I interpreted that as surprise. I apologize if you disagree.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#156

Post by bitwize »

my-next-account wrote: post #22

I swear that the amount of astroturfing in the comment field by AI bots being positive towards AI is at an all time high as well.

AI has legitimately changed everything. It's not 2022 anymore. Try a recent LLM and set it to a coding task. For even moderate tasks, things you could burn a weekend or more on, the model will complete it in minutes, to a high degree of quality. It can write code better than most programmers, faster than any human. If that doesn't inspire positive feelings, it should at least fill you with awe. We live in an age of wonders.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#157

Post by 1dom »

dgellow wrote: post #133
my-next-account wrote: post #22

I swear that the amount of astroturfing in the comment field by AI bots being positive towards AI is at an all time high as well.

FWIW I’ve seen people complaining of the exact opposite. Difficult to say without measuring

This makes no sense to me - what's the opposite of AI astroturfing? Why are people complaining about it?

Ironically, your comment could easily be a failed comment from an astroturfing LLM tasked with criticising/disagreeing with people calling out LLMs.

FWIW, I checked your profile, I don't really think you're an LLM. The internet is hard now - sorry :(

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#158

Post by [deleted] »

Legend2440 wrote: post #148
yndoendo wrote: post #81

AI has turned me away from HN more and more. Most of the content is about using some data center based ML provider. My view is how so many ignore the environmental harm these constructs are doing; increasing ambient temperatures, inducing heavy metals into the water table, decreasing the access to water for human consumption in numerous drought areas, hostel ambient noise ... The wealth who are the majority finical b…

A lot of those environmental claims are not accurate, or substantially overblown. Heavy metals in the water table is a new one I haven't heard before, and I'm skeptical. Most of this is motivated reasoning by people who don't like AI for other reasons and are just looking for justifications to shut it down.

[deleted]

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#159

Post by xphos »

If people feel this way they should just start a flag this AI post campaign. If people can flag anything they disagree with a little effort the community can be AI free at least on main page.

That said it would be interesting to have a AI flagging so you can just filter the just AI topics. Its very different from people harping on crypto or VC focus. I dislike reading the AI output when someone says they have an opinion the original source material the AI ripped content from to me is more valuable flaws in all than a normalized AI output

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#160

Post by yladiz »

VCFundedGenYer wrote: post #91
mgl wrote: post #14

Democratization of access has its victims. I miss the old newsgroups. I wish we could land again in that weird, colorful oceans of geeky individuals with their quirks and interesting nerdy takes. 15 years ago, HN was about bootstrapping and early YC stars. 10 years ago, HN was in full VC-enterprise sauce. 5 years ago, it was crypto and NFTs, and how I switch jobs every quarter. Now it is a blurry view into the future…

Discord is actively torpedoing small, niche, or marginalized communities. Not a safe place.

Torpedoing how?
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