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New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

marginalia.nu

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Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#161

Post by surgical_fire »

ceejayoz wrote: post #136
mancerayder wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting.

Incidentally, how much do they pay for a HN account that is a few years old and accumulated a few thousand Internet points?

Asking for a friend.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#163

Post by montroser »

kraftman wrote: post #159
dematz wrote: post #48

One 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…

It's wierd because the barrier to not have that in is so low, you can just tack on 'talk like me not AI, dont use em dashes, don't use formulaic structures, be concice' and itll get rid of half of those signals.

Don't give these subnormals any ideas!

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#164

Post by kdheiwns »

onion2k wrote: post #5

I’ve had this sense that HN has gotten absolutely innundated with bots last few months. Is it possible to differentiate between a bot, and a human using AI to 'improve' the quality of their comment where some of the content might be AI written but not all? I don't think it is.

AI post "improvements" are the most annoying thing. I see more and more people doing it, especially when posting reviews/experiences with things, and they always get called out for it. They always justify it with "AI helped me organize what I wanted to say." Like man, you're having an AI write about an experience it didn't have and likely didn't even proofread it. Who knows what BS it added to the story. Even disorganized and misspelled stories are better than AI fantasy renditions that are 20 times longer than they need to be.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#165

Post by simonw »

The data is available in a SQLite database on GitHub: https://github.com/vlofgren/hn-green-clankers

You can explore the underlying data using SQL queries in your browser here: https://lite.datasette.io/?url=https%253A%252F%252Fraw.githu... (that's Datasette Lite, my build of the Datasette Python web app that runs in Pyodide in WebAssembly)

Here's a SQL query that shows the users in that data that posted the most comments with at least one em dash - the top ones all look like legitimate accounts to me: https://lite.datasette.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fraw.githubuserc...

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#166

Post by AstroBen »

doe88 wrote: post #120

I don't understand what is the purpose of these bots? Nihilism? Vandalism? At first I doubted when people were saying that such and such comments was AI generated, I didn't understand the goal, the motives so I thought it couldn't be ; but lately I understood how dead wrong I was, we are submerged, I came to realize that we are eaten by a sea of these useless comments.

You can control the major narrative on social media — about anything you want

What we think others around us think has a big effect on our own behavior

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#167

Post by wgm »

d4mi3n wrote: post #50

I'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.

I totally agree. When I use em-dashes in my /family iMessage thread/ I get accused of having used ChatGPT to write my reply—my one-sentence reply about dinner plans. Dear Lord.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#168

Post by homebrewer »

kraftman wrote: post #159
dematz wrote: post #48

One 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…

It's wierd because the barrier to not have that in is so low, you can just tack on 'talk like me not AI, dont use em dashes, don't use formulaic structures, be concice' and itll get rid of half of those signals.

This is how you get precious takes like this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45322362

> First impression: I need to dive into this hackernews reply mockup thing thoroughly without any fluff or self-promotion. My persona should be ..., energetic with health/tech insights but casual and relatable.

> Looking at the constraints: short, punchy between 50-80 characters total—probably multiple one-sentence paragraphs here to fit that brevity while keeping it engaging.

> User specified avoiding "Hey" or "absolutely."

Lots more in its other comments (you need [showdead] on).

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#169

Post by izucken »

m_w_ wrote: post #152
dematz wrote: post #48

One 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…

"is real" is another big red flag, go search this in comments. There appear to be at least three accounts posting direct LLM outputs. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

This correlation you are observing is real.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#170

Post by mkoryak »

dang wrote: post #126
d4mi3n wrote: post #50

I'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.

Someone should ban this bot, I've seen it before and it's always pretending to run this place
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