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How much of HN is AI?

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Re: How much of HN is AI?

#121

Post by altcognito »

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…

"Democratization of access has its victims."

If it were democratization, we'd all have access to the data that underlies this dataset. In reality, this will destroy the origins of the data, and it will become hidden for all of humanity.

It is a tragedy of the commons of the highest order.

They will talk about how they are trying to protect humanity all while putting it behind a paywall.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#122

Post by miltonlost »

Aurornis wrote: post #93
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…

> increasing ambient temperatures, That study was so bad that I can’t believe it’s becoming an actual concern that people use against data centers. They were barely able to register a temperature increase a couple hundred meters directly downwind. > _Lobsters_ has now becoming my go-to with their posts being focused on ideas and concepts versus advertisements for large corporation ML based solutions. Lobsters has a f…

One AI psychotic's "barely able to register" is another person's "increasing ambient temperature".

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#124

Post by 52-6F-62 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #117
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 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!

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#125

Post by KellyCriterion »

brazukadev wrote: post #96
KellyCriterion wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot to mention the "JS-framework-of-the-month" years :-D

also known as the good old days

Some weeks ago, a colleague laughed at me when I asked: "btw, do we use jQuery somewhere in our web app?" - he said, its no more a thing today.

Is that true?

(Im out of webdev for years)

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#126

Post by llm_nerd »

Someone made an HN without AI filter and it front paged here a bit ago.

https://elijahpotter.dev/hnsansai

(That's the first one I found, maybe there were others)

So...are you complainers all using it? If not, why not?

Spoiler -- because when someone says "I'm tired of reading about {X}", they're really saying "I want everyone else to stop talking about {X}". This has happened repeatedly over HN's life, and it just betrays how emotional people get when they feel that they can't control the narrative.

If HN doesn't work for you, stop coming to it?

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#127

Post by pydry »

jrflo wrote: post #75
pydry wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels more like another blockchain hype cycle to me. Especially the part where we're always on the cusp of the entire world changing while the biggest change is just that huge sums of money changed hands, inducing psychosis in a large group of investors.

I know what you're saying, there is a lot of speculation going on in AI right now. The difference is there is hard evidence of AI capabilities accelerating now: we've gone from toy chatbots to sort-of useful coding helpers to agents solving novel math problems in 3.5 years. We could plateau any day and a lot of investors would be stuck holding the bag, or we could continue on that trajectory and they'll make crazy pr…

The irony with blockchain is that it also had a bunch of real life use cases but the sheer extremity of the hype cycle managed to actually prevent them from being effectively brought to life.

There was a lot of genuinely useful tech that blockchain could have facilitated and all we were left with in the end was a mountain of scams and bitcoin.

I'm seeing something similar with AI where the genuinely useful stuff is getting washed out by the hype simply because it's a gradual improvement and not "disruptive". Meanwhile the stuff sold as disruptive like vibe coding is mostly bullshit.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#128

Post by brazukadev »

jrflo wrote: post #10

My reaction is: that's an appropriate amount. AI is probably the biggest thing to happen (in tech) in the last two decades, so I think it's fair that it's taking up a lot of the discourse.

> AI is probably the biggest thing to happen (in tech) in the last two decades, so I think it's fair that it's taking up a lot of the discourse.

Almost. the iphone was launched 19 years ago. It was (and still is) much more relevant than the current LLM-based AI.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#129

Post by FLeXMurphy »

As someone who has been posting here since 2010, I don't blame AI. The exodus started long ago and continues to evolve over time. It is unfortunate what this place has become due to poor quality of moderation. Lobste.rs just hits better, and Reddit isn't half-bad as purported.

Re: How much of HN is AI?

#130

Post by AnimalMuppet »

The thing is, the AI-related topics are pretty easy to skip. Sure, you may have to go to the second page to see the same number of non-AI stories that you used to see on the front page alone, but you can just not click on them. (Same with politics, BTW.)

But AI-generated content is harder, both stories and comments. HN does moderately (heh) well at filtering them out, but I would like better.

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