Many of us — perhaps even the best of us — can sometimes be mistaken for AI bots.
Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
121–130 of 1001 posts
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#122I think using AI for a bit more potent spellchecking or style hints is... fine, honestly. I don't usually do it, you can tell from all the silly spelling mistakes I do. But a bit more polishing for your posts is a good thing, not a bad one, as long as it doesn't hide your voice.
Would anyone notice if you spell-checked or got narrow feedback about grammar? No. I'm not dang, but perhaps a very reasonable interpretation of the rules is: If the AI is generating the words, don't. If it tells you something about your words and you choose to revise them without just copying words the AI output, it's still your words.
(As an experiment, I took that paragraph and threw it into gemini to ask for spell and grammar checking. It yelled at me completely incorrectly about saying "I'm not dang". Of its 4 suggestions, only 1 was correct, and the other 3 would have either broken what I was trying to say or reduced the presence of my usual HN comment voice. So while I said the above, perhaps I'm wrong and even listening to the damn box about grammar is a bad idea.)
That said, I often post from my phone and have somewhat frequent little glitches either from voice recognition or large clumsy thumbs, and nobody has ever seemed to care except me when I notice them a few minutes after the edit button goes away.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#123One thing that will be incredibly useful is to limit comments from brand new accounts. A combination of vouching, limiting the posts velocity (5 daily limit), clear rules for new accounts, etc.
I understand we often see insightful comments from new accounts, but I always find it suspicious when non-throwaway accounts are created just in time only to make a quip.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#124[flagged]
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#125The 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.
Not necessarily. Using AI you can trivially perform astroturfing campaigns to influence public perception. That doesn't really fall on the interesting or correctness spectrums. For example, if 90% of the comments online are claiming birds aren't real with a serious tone, you might convince people to fall into that delusion. It becomes "common knowledge" rather than a fringe theory. But if comments reflect reality then only a tiny portion of people have learned the truth about birds, so people will read those claims with more skepticism.
(naturally "birds aren't real" is a correct vs not correct thing, but the same can be applied to many less-objective things like the best mechanical keyboard or the morality of a war)
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#126"AI-edited comments" is a very interesting one. Where is the line between a spelling/grammar/tone checker like Grammarly, that at minimum use N-Grams behind the scenes, and something that is "AI" edited? What I am asking is, is "AI" in this context fully featured LLMs, or anything that improves communication via an automated system. I think many people have used these "advanced" spellcheckers for years before Chatgpt…
You should use your own words. It might seem that a tool like Grammarly is just an advanced spellcheck, but what it's really doing is replacing your personal style of writing with its own. It's better to communicate as an individual, warts and all, than to replace your expression with a sanitized one just because it seems "better." Language is an incredibly nuanced thing, it's best for people's own thoughts to come t…
That's true, but on the flip side I regularly get downvoted because my English is not the best, so say it mildly. So, now I need to be really careful, to a) write in a good English or b) not to be recognised as an LLM corrected version of my English. Where is the line? I shouldn't be downvoted for my English I think, but that is the reality.
Edit: I already got downvoted. :-) Sure, no one can tell exactly why. Maybe the combination of bad English _and_ talking sh*ce isn't ideal at all. :-D Anyways, I have enough karma, so I can last quite a while..
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#127What if English is my second language? Undoubtedly being well spoken is associated with higher class. Your arguments will come of as stronger to the reader.
Humans have a tendency to ascribe intelligence to how well spoken a person or thing is—hence all the personification of LLMs.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#128"AI-edited comments" is a very interesting one. Where is the line between a spelling/grammar/tone checker like Grammarly, that at minimum use N-Grams behind the scenes, and something that is "AI" edited? What I am asking is, is "AI" in this context fully featured LLMs, or anything that improves communication via an automated system. I think many people have used these "advanced" spellcheckers for years before Chatgpt…
I saw a similar conversation somewhere about some project saying they don't allow AI generated code.
It was asked that if "AI Generated Code" is just code suggested to you by a computer program, where does using the code that your IDE suggests in a dropdown? That's been around for decades. Is it LLM or "Gen AI" specific? If so, what specific aspect of that makes one use case good and one use case bad and what exactly separates them?
It's one of those situations where it seems easy to point at examples and say "this one's good and this one's bad", but when you need to write policy you start drowning in minutia.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#129[flagged]
> The final comment is mine, shaped by my experience and opinions
I can understand why you think this is true, but it is false.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#130Don’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.
Unfortunately a lot of other do not understand (in the double sense).