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When did AI take over Hacker News?

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Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#161

Post by throw234234234 »

ryandrake wrote: post #20

I noticed at one point a few days ago that all 10 out of the top 10 articles on the front page were about AI or LLMs. Granted, that doesn't happen often, but wow. This craze is just unrelenting.

This site does pitch to developers. Rightly or wrongly the hype or what I think more accurately is the fear cycle is in LLM's/AI w.r.t SWE's. Given loss aversion in most people fear cycles are way more effective than hype ones in attracting long term interest and engagement.

I think many here, if people are being honest with themselves, are wondering what does this mean for their career, their ability to provide/live, and what this means for their future especially if they aren't financially secure yet. For tech workers the risk/fear that they are not secure in long term employment is a lot higher than it was 2 years ago; even if they can't predict how all of this will play out. For founders/VC's/businesses/capital owners/etc conversely the hype is there that they will be able to do what they wanted to do with less costs.

More than crypto, NFT, or whatever other hype cycle is - I would argue LLM's in the long term could be the first technology where the the tech worker demand may decline as a result despite the amount of software growing. The focus on AI labs in coding as their "killer app" does not help probably. While we've had "hype" cycles in tech its rarer to see fear cycles.

Like a deer looking at incoming headlights (i.e. I think AI is more of a fear cycle than hype cycle for many people) people are looking for any information related to the threat, taking away focus from everything else.

TL;DR While people are fearful/excited (depending on who) of the changes coming, and seeing the rate of change remains at current pace, IMO the craze won't stop.

Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#162

Post by anabelluis423 »

throw234234234 wrote: post #161
ryandrake wrote: post #20

I noticed at one point a few days ago that all 10 out of the top 10 articles on the front page were about AI or LLMs. Granted, that doesn't happen often, but wow. This craze is just unrelenting.

This site does pitch to developers. Rightly or wrongly the hype or what I think more accurately is the fear cycle is in LLM's/AI w.r.t SWE's. Given loss aversion in most people fear cycles are way more effective than hype ones in attracting long term interest and engagement. I think many here, if people are being honest with themselves, are wondering what does this mean for their career, their ability to provide/live…

[dead]

Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#163

Post by alisonatwork »

1659447091 wrote: post #94
jacquesm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been here since 2010 and you still don't know you can't downvote someone downthread from you?

I have a theory that a large number of old accounts that were abandoned/not used got taken over at some point and are being used for most AI assisted comments. I just don't care enough to audit the comments of all the users. It was more obvious over the spring with all of the political post and how volatile the voting on comments would be plus other patterns that stuck out

Another possibility is they were registered as sleeper accounts in the first place. Most web platforms make it so cheap to sign up that there's no reason why an organized actor wouldn't collect accounts for potential future activation. For every dozen sites that never take off, there might be one that does, and then the actor can start to activate the accounts they stockpiled over the years for the low low price of nothing.

One way to try mitigate this is binding accounts to phone numbers and binding phone numbers to government ID, but while that kind of thing works to some degree in places like China where the audience for a site is primarily domestic, it's harder to do on an international forum. As usual, the signup mechanisms that preserve people's freedoms and (relative) anonymity also leave the system wide open to abuse.

Before I worked in this space I thought the answer would simply be to charge a nominal fee, like a dollar a year, but while that dissuades casual trolls, it is no hurdle at all for organized crime, state actors etc.

Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#164

Post by sumeno »

srcreigh wrote: post #89
rising-sky wrote: post #9

What I found insightful about this article was the framing of another article cited. > " This pretty negative post topping Hacker News last month sparked these questions, and I decided to find some answers, of course, using AI" The pretty negative post cited is https://tomrenner.com/posts/llm-inevitabilism/ . I went ahead to read it, and found it, imo, fair. It's not making any direct pretty negative claims about AI,…

> rather questioning first if the future being peddled is actually what we want The author (tom) tricked you. His article is flame bait. AI is a tool that we can use and discuss about. It's not just a "future being peddled." The article manages to say nothing about AI, casts generic doubt on AI as a whole, and pits people against each other. It's a giant turd for any discussion about AI, a sure-fire curiosity destruc…

It's a tool that we can use and discuss, but it's baffling to claim there aren't also a bunch of charlatans trying to peddle an AI future that is varying degrees of unrealistic and dystopian.

Any number of Sam Altman quotes display this: "A child born today will never be smarter than an AI" "We are past the event horizon; the takeoff has started. Humanity is close to building digital superintelligence" "ChatGPT is already more powerful than any human who has ever lived" "AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies."

Every bit of this is nonsense being peddled by the guy selling an AI future because it would make him one of the richest people alive if he can convince enough people that it will come true (or, much much much less likely, it does come true).

That's just from 10 minutes of looking at statements by a single one of these charlatans.

Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#165

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

spacebuffer wrote: post #159
MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I was looking for a job, I wrote a little scraper that used naive regex to classify "HN Who's Hiring" postings as "AI," "full time," etc. I was looking for a full time remote or hybrid non-AI job in New York. I'm not against working on AI, but this being a startup forum I felt like listings were dominated by shiny new thing startups, whereas I was looking for a more "boring" job. Anyway, here's: - a gra…

Surprised by how much job postings decreased, in the span of 3 years. Great Graph.

Thanks. I think 2021 was a high point, but my scaper doesn't go further back for some reason -- I think that one of my assumptions about how things are formatted doesn't hold before than.

Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#166

Post by nosioptar »

paulcole wrote: post #53
jacquesm wrote: post #29

I'm more annoyed at the - clearly - AI based comments than the articles themselves. The articles are easy to ignore, the comments are a lot harder. In light of that I'd still love it if HN created an ignore feature, I think the community is large enough now that that makes complete sense. It would certainly improve my HN experience.

> In light of that I'd still love it if HN created an ignore feature This is why I always think the HN reader apps that people make using the API are some of the stupidest things imaginable. They’re always self-described as “beautifully designed” and “clean” but never have any good features. I would use one and pay for it if it had an ignore feature and the ability to filter out posts and threads based on specific ke…

I've never seen an app whose dev calls it "beautiful" that doesn't look like dogshit...

Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#167

Post by giancarlostoro »

b112 wrote: post #96
giancarlostoro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little unrelated but the biggest feature I want for HN is to be able to search specifically threads and comments I've favorited / upvoted. I've liked hundreds if not thousands of articles / comments. If I could narrow down my searches to all that content I would be able to find gems of the web a lot easier.

The search is rails, were you being funny with the 'gems' bit? https://github.com/algolia/hn-search You can already access all your upvotes in your user page, so this might be an easy patch?

I know I can access them, but I cannot search through all of them.

I had no idea about it being rails.

Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#168

Post by zahlman »

ryandrake wrote: post #17
rising-sky wrote: post #9

What I found insightful about this article was the framing of another article cited. > " This pretty negative post topping Hacker News last month sparked these questions, and I decided to find some answers, of course, using AI" The pretty negative post cited is https://tomrenner.com/posts/llm-inevitabilism/ . I went ahead to read it, and found it, imo, fair. It's not making any direct pretty negative claims about AI,…

Weird what counts as "negative" on HN. Question something politely? You're being negative. Criticize something? Negative. Describe it in a way someone might interpret badly? Negative. Sometimes it seems like anything that's not breathless, unconditional praise is considered being negative and curmudgeonly. It's turning into a "positive thoughts only" zone.

Whenever there's a submission about something unpleasant or undesirable happening in the real world, the comment section fills with people trying to connect those things to their preferred political hobby-horses, so that their outgroups can take the blame as the ultimate cause of all that's wrong with the world. Contrarily, stories about human achievement won't simply draw a crowd of admirers in my experience, but instead there's quite a bit of complaint about outgroup members supposedly seeking to interfere with future successes (by following their own values, as understood from outside rather than inside).

And most people here seem to think that's fine; but it's not in line with what I understood when I read the guidelines, and it absolutely strikes me as negativity.

Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#169

Post by [deleted] »

camillomiller wrote: post #44
ryandrake wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird what counts as "negative" on HN. Question something politely? You're being negative. Criticize something? Negative. Describe it in a way someone might interpret badly? Negative. Sometimes it seems like anything that's not breathless, unconditional praise is considered being negative and curmudgeonly. It's turning into a "positive thoughts only" zone.

There is a relevant number of power users that also flag everything that is critical of big tech and won’t fit their frame as well, sending it into oblivion, regardless of the community rules and clear support from other voting members. But also calling that out is seen as negative and not constructive, and there goes any attempt at a discussion.

[deleted]

Re: When did AI take over Hacker News?

#170

Post by zahlman »

camillomiller wrote: post #83
jaredklewis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know who flags submissions?

i don’t, but I know certain users have a strong flagging penchant. check my recent submission, the vitriol it received, and read this https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/27/youll-never-gue...

Your recent submission in my view absolutely merits flagging, because it's about booing a company you don't like and doesn't come across as charitable or asked in good faith.

And I agree with jakeydus: I'm not seeing anything I could call "vitriol" in the top-level comments. I do, however, see people resent having their way of life (and of making a living) called into question. The one particularly snide top-level comment I saw was agreeing with you.

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