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How much of HN is AI?

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Re: How much of HN is AI?

#161

Post by Legend2440 »

ViktorRay wrote: post #37

Reading about tech has become gradually less and less fun for me over the past 16 years. Does anyone remember the awe that was felt the first time we encountered an iPhone. Or an iPad? I remember those days I would read tech news and sites like Ars Technica and comments were sometimes snarky and indignant but generally people were enthusiastic about reading tech because it offered glimpses into more technically advan…

>Does anyone remember the awe that was felt the first time we encountered an iPhone. Or an iPad?

Yes, and when I first saw LLMs and image generators I experienced a similar feeling of awe. We haven't had anything like this in decades.

It is unfortunate that many people are negative and nasty about it. Local politicians are getting shot at over datacenter projects. We have truly lost the plot.

I used to think that people had learned their lesson that automation was a force for good, and we had gotten past the Luddite days of smashing looms. But it seems that is not the case, people are just as short-sighted as ever.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#162

Post by Rendello »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #66

> In the first half of the month, roughly 60% of the daily HN lineup was AI-related or AI-generated, tapering off to ~50% as we approached the end of the month. This is up from 40% in February. This aligns with my much less scientific research. Every now and again, when I remember to do it, I will skim the top 10 stories and count how many are AI-related. I find it is very consistently in the 4-6 bracket. Probably a…

A couple of years ago I considered making a simple regex-based web extension to block posts with common AI words: ChatGPT, Copilot, LLM, etc. There was one or two on every page and I didn't want to see them.

Over the next few years it flipped, most of the posts concern AI, and I scan for non-AI topics to engage with. I can't really blame HN for this, it's a massive upset in our industry and the world more broadly.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#164

Post by krapp »

xphos wrote: post #159

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 opin…

>If people can flag anything they disagree with a little effort the community can be AI free at least on main page

Unfortunately AI-based articles are on topic (AI generated comments are not) and if people flag them they'll just lose their flagging rights. I'm also reasonably certain "flagging campaigns" are categorically against the rules, even though there is such a campaign implicitly against "politics."

There's nothing anyone can do about it except complain (which will eventually get them filtered because such complaints are also against the rules), be quiet and tolerate it (which is the only option that follows the guidelines), or else leave to greener pastures.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#165

Post by thephyber »

int32_64 wrote: post #39
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…

I'm nostalgic for the new JS framework every day era. Say what you will about that era but people were writing the code by hand, so looking back it all feels "hand-crafted" and quaint. You had to copy paste that express app from a medium.com article instead of prompting an LLM to scaffold a whole project in one second.

Is this comment... satire?

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#166

Post by krapp »

int32_64 wrote: post #39
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…

I'm nostalgic for the new JS framework every day era. Say what you will about that era but people were writing the code by hand, so looking back it all feels "hand-crafted" and quaint. You had to copy paste that express app from a medium.com article instead of prompting an LLM to scaffold a whole project in one second.

>You had to copy paste that express app from a medium.com article instead of prompting an LLM to scaffold a whole project in one second.

You mean they had to import it from NPM and compile it from Typescript, right? I don't think anyone's copied and pasted JS since JQuery was a thing.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#167

Post by recursive »

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 might migrate if I could could an invite, but I haven't been able to find anyone on the inside.

Edit: Thank you kind stranger. I'm in.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#168

Post by krapp »

seizethecheese wrote: post #118
nephihaha wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, I'm surprised to see people proposing conformist views and trying to push whatever the establishment is pushing.

I dunno, I was a contrarian with blockchain and now am conformist with AI. Being contrarian for its own sake is pretty stupid.

>Being contrarian for its own sake is pretty stupid.

All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#169

Post by tetec1 »

randysalami wrote: post #115
Morizero wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How could we jump back into the cozy past again? "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which are changing all the time - back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

Well sometimes you can

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

I'm seeing this nostalgic sentiment a lot on forums these days, but it's not just about bringing back ye old usenet groups: you also need to bring back the way people thought back then. It's hard.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#170

Post by tetec1 »

mgl wrote: post #33
nemomarx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run a self hosted forum or instance of whatever you like, and just only let people sign up if they are recommended by someone or can argue their way in, basically. xenforo and some add ons can do that, and I'm sure there's a few self hosted messaging apps like you mention but I'm not as familiar

I do not think this is a technology problem. I think it is a problem of how we changed: shorter attention spans, and a much larger volume of information to process. Short forms win, long forms vanish, which is a tragedy in itself as good writing requires good understanding, and understanding is impossible without attention. I'm in my 40s. I remember lcamtuf from pl.comp.security when I was just getting started playin…

Yes exactly. People have changed too. We're not going back. But we can hope that something new and better can one day appear.
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