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HN is drowning in AI comments

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Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#41

Post by waygtdai »

WD-42 wrote: post #30
pixl97 wrote: post #10

No, not HN, the internet at large. Now, I'm on vacation this week and not been paying too much attention, but whenever you have a geopolitical event like the little extravaganza in Iran the number of bot like posts tends to explode as influence operators make their moves.

The public facing internet is done. HN has been fairly resilient (I think) but even it is beginning to buckle. It’s been sliding for a while but LLMs are the death knell. It was a fun 2 decades. Time to stick to private discords and real life friends from here on out, though.

I don’t think HN is any more resilient. The new account captcha is fairly tame and, while I’m sure they have proxy detectors and other things in place, it doesn’t stop new accounts from posting and getting traction.

Someone suggested earlier this week that an invite system should be implemented (I think lobsters has it?) I doubt it would fly here, but yeah.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#42

Post by vunderba »

schappim wrote: post #19

I wonder what the breakdown is between AI-generated comments and AI-assisted comments. If I write anything substantial, I run it through the following prompt: "Please rewrite the following message for clarity, spelling, and grammar, but only return the revised text without any additional commentary."

Use a local model such as Gemma3 with a prompt such as "strictly limit changes only to spelling issues, syntactical errors, and punctuation."

That way, it's basically functioning like Grammarly on steroids. Asking an LLM for a "rewrite" is basically dissolving your writing style into the homogenized gloop.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#44

Post by brg »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #8

I've read HN almost everyday for about 10 years. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see it. I see way more folks complaining that comments are AI generated.

To add to the collection of anecdata, your experience is similar to mine. I have been more exhausted recently by the complaints of AI submissions and pseudo analysis of AI comments than exhausted by the supposed AI generated comments themselves.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#45

Post by ShroudedNight »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #40
WoodenChair wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this if you’re not a native speaker. But if you are, I think this will generally make you sound wooden.

Perplexity did this to your response. I'm not sure that correcting grammar and changing one word makes it sound wooden. "I understand this if you’re not a native speaker, but if you are, it will generally make you sound a bit unnatural."

"I think" is explicitly disclaiming authority. Omitting it changes the social signaling of the response significantly.

Switching "wooden" for "a bit unnatural" also does a disservice: "wooden" describes a specific quality of deviance.

Over-all, I would definitely consider the revision stiffer and more reserved than the original.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#46

Post by WD-42 »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #40
WoodenChair wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this if you’re not a native speaker. But if you are, I think this will generally make you sound wooden.

Perplexity did this to your response. I'm not sure that correcting grammar and changing one word makes it sound wooden. "I understand this if you’re not a native speaker, but if you are, it will generally make you sound a bit unnatural."

“Wooden” is much richer and unique than “a bit unnatural” so yes the ai version does sound more like a robot.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#47

Post by greesil »

AstroBen wrote: post #36
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #8

I've read HN almost everyday for about 10 years. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see it. I see way more folks complaining that comments are AI generated.

There are a lot, but they tend to get heavily downvoted and end up hidden

How would you know?

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#48

Post by subsection1h »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #8

I've read HN almost everyday for about 10 years. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see it. I see way more folks complaining that comments are AI generated.

I've been using HN since 2008 when I created my first account[1] and I use HN differently than most people. I have a group of bookmarked searches that I visit almost daily that relate to technologies that interest me, such as Emacs.

In the past year, the searches I perform that relate to web development show a horrifying increase in the amount of Show HN posts that are posted by new accounts, include AI generated descriptions and point to AI generated projects on GitHub.

In 2024, there were 17,661 Show HN posts.[2] In the past year, there have been over 448,000 Show HN posts![3] And of course, most of these posts are AI generated.

Also, if you check the new accounts posting all this AI slop, you'll see that some of them also post AI generated comments in other threads, which is the main problem.

But for me, what is even more annoying is the enormous increase in new accounts created by nontechnical vibecoders who now think of themselves as technologists and who post worthless, ignorant comments that actually get upvoted, presumably by similar folks who have unfortunately been creating accounts at HN in the past 10 years or so.

As a result, 2026 is the first year in which I visit HN about once a week instead of about once a day.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=zartan

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22Show+HN%22&dateRange=custom...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22Show+HN%22&dateRange=pastYe...

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#49

Post by 000ooo000 »

schappim wrote: post #19

I wonder what the breakdown is between AI-generated comments and AI-assisted comments. If I write anything substantial, I run it through the following prompt: "Please rewrite the following message for clarity, spelling, and grammar, but only return the revised text without any additional commentary."

Articulateness is a decent (not perfect) signal for intelligence, which is a decent (not perfect) signal for sound ideas. In a sea of online garbage, it was a quick and easy way to discard that not worth reading. Nowadays, a whiff of AI's brand of articulateness tells me the author couldn't manage on their own, either due to skill or discipline. In either case, the result is the same: close tab / scroll past.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#50

Post by subsection1h »

subsection1h wrote: post #48
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #8

I've read HN almost everyday for about 10 years. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see it. I see way more folks complaining that comments are AI generated.

I've been using HN since 2008 when I created my first account[1] and I use HN differently than most people. I have a group of bookmarked searches that I visit almost daily that relate to technologies that interest me, such as Emacs. In the past year, the searches I perform that relate to web development show a horrifying increase in the amount of Show HN posts that are posted by new accounts, include AI generated des…

The fact that this discussion was flagged might be the final nail in the coffin for me. The huge increase in AI generated comments and posts at HN is a topic that has been discussed on other forums for months now. Complaints include "Orange Reddit", "Orange LinkedIn", etc. But when the topic comes up at HN, it gets flagged. Fuck this.
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