Biggest tell that a comment is AI: it's deeply uninteresting.
No one wants to read your ChatGPT outputs.
New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
131–140 of 643 posts
Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
#132One pattern I've noticed recently is sort of formulaic comments that look okish on their own, maybe a bit abstract/vague/bland, and not taking a particular side on good/bad in the way people like to do, but really obviously AI when you look at the account history and they're all the same formula: >this is [summary] >not just x, it's y >punchy ending, maybe question Once you know it's AI it's very obvious they told it…
What motivation is there to use AI to astroturf (if that's what this is) like this?
Is it ideological?
Is it product marketing in those relevant threads where someone is showcasing?
Or is it pure technical testing, playing around?
Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
One solution is to get rid of anonymity online, enforce validation of identity. Every human only gets 1 account. And then we still ban people that use AI. Might take a bit but eventually we'll have filtered out all the grifters. If that's worth the cost... probably not?
Getting rid of anonymity is in time going to lead to getting rid of the platform, so do it if you're feeling suicidal. People seek real anonymity for good reason. Not everything should follow them in life or for life.
I've been wondering too, what the solution would be. IF the bots were actually helpful, I wouldn't care, but they always push an agenda, create noise, or derail discussions instead.
For now maybe all forums should require some bloody swearing in each comment to at least prove you've got some damn human borne annoyance in you? It might even work against the big players for a little bit, because they have an incentive to have their LLMs not swearing. The monetary reward is after all in sounding professional.
Easy enough for any groups to overcome of course, but at least it'd be amusing for a while. Just watching the swear-farms getting set up in lower paid countries, mistakes being made by the large companies when using the "swearing enabled" models and all that.
Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
#134I'm still salty that I can't use em-dashes anymore for fear of my writing being flagged as AI generated. Been using them for years—it's just `alt+shift+-` on a Mac keyboard and I find them more legible in many fonts compared to the simple dash on the typical numpad. It's so sad to me that good typographical conventions have been co-opted by the zeitgeist of LLMs.
are there really places that a comma, super-comma; or (parenthesis) dont work roughly as well? I find the em-dash mildly abhorrent, even before this all.
> super-comma
This is the first time I've ever heard the character ";" referred to as such. It's always been "semi-colon" to me, is this a region/culture difference?
I'm not saying you're wrong, I find it interesting.
Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
#135A couple thoughts: (1) I don't recommend focusing disproportionately on one signal. They'll change, and are incredibly easy to optimize for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing (2) I do recommend taking one minute to dash a note off to hn@ycombinator.com if you see suspicious patterns. Dang and our other intrepid mods are preturnatually responsive, and appear to appreciate the extra eyeballs o…
Is there even an incentive to optimize for such signals, though? Em-dashes have been a known indicator of AI-generated text for a good while, and are still extremely prevalent. While someone who doesn't like AI slop and knows and what to look out for will notice and call out obvious AI comments, the unfortunate truth is that the majority of people simply cannot tell, and even among those who can, many don't care. Obv…
The mods do care, but you have to email them or they won't necessarily notice.
Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
#136One pattern I've noticed recently is sort of formulaic comments that look okish on their own, maybe a bit abstract/vague/bland, and not taking a particular side on good/bad in the way people like to do, but really obviously AI when you look at the account history and they're all the same formula: >this is [summary] >not just x, it's y >punchy ending, maybe question Once you know it's AI it's very obvious they told it…
What motivation is there to use AI to astroturf (if that's what this is) like this? Is it ideological? Is it product marketing in those relevant threads where someone is showcasing? Or is it pure technical testing, playing around?
In some cases, it's probably to establish aged accounts that are more trusted by users and spam algorithms. There's a market for old Reddit accounts, for example.
Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
#137I get the punchline here but is there possibly some sort of Streisand effect where real people now are more inclined to use an em dash?
Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
#138Why? What's the incentive/value to commenting here with AI?
Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
#139I'm still salty that I can't use em-dashes anymore for fear of my writing being flagged as AI generated. Been using them for years—it's just `alt+shift+-` on a Mac keyboard and I find them more legible in many fonts compared to the simple dash on the typical numpad. It's so sad to me that good typographical conventions have been co-opted by the zeitgeist of LLMs.
Just do it anyway—I always have, and always will. Well, I haven't always —just for maybe 20 years.
In a lot of ways, it feels like this is simply a fight for recognition that the Mac keyboard supports emdashes.
This wouldn't be an issue if mobile users or Windows users were exercising it too, but it's just Mac owners and LLMs. And Mac owners are probably the minority of instances where it is used.
Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haha, the code counts the number of comments with em-dashes and similar, not the number of em-dashes total. Could be an argument made for aggregating by user instead however, if some bots are found to be particularly active and skewing the data.
Don’t —
Don’t — me bro