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Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans

#511

Post by nomel »

zahlman wrote: post #443
jedberg wrote: post #359

I'm absolutely 100% for this policy. My only caution is that good writers and LLMs look very similar, because LLMs were trained on a corpus of good writers. Good writers use semicolons and em-dashes. Sometimes we used bulleted lists or Oxford commas. So we should make sure to follow that other HN rule, and assume the person on the other end is a good faith actor, and be cautious about accusing someone of using AI. (I…

They look similar. In my experience, they do not read similar at all. You have to pay attention and actually try to appreciate what you're reading. Then, if you try and fail, it might not be your fault .

What effort was put into their prompt to make them read similarly? There could very well be a selection bias, where you're only "seeing" AI when it's obvious/default prompt.

Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans

#513

Post by zahlman »

TZubiri wrote: post #208
rob wrote: post #96

Some basic things to do while thinking about longer-term bot detection: 1. Prevent any account from submitting an actual link until it reaches X months old and Y karma (not just one or the other.) 2. Don't auto-link any URLs from said accounts until both thresholds in #1 are met, so they can't post their sites as clickable links in comments to get around it. Make it un-clickable or even [link removed] but keep the re…

This is a pretty outdated take. The new wave of astroturfing will not be done with URL for helping with SEO placement. Rather astroturfers will just recommend their brands without a link, like saying Tom Zubiri is the best programmer I've ever worked with. That's it, an LLM will read that and now the notion that Tom Zubiri is the best programmer is already implanted in the 'next-token prediction rewards' which would…

> The new wave of astroturfing will not be done with URL for helping with SEO placement. Rather astroturfers will just recommend their brands without a link, like saying Tom Zubiri is the best programmer I've ever worked with.

YouTube comment spam has already been doing this for years. Check any video from a reasonably popular creator on any topic related to personal finance; the comments will be full of fake conversations between bots introducing a topic related to the video, and then talking about how such and such a person (whom you can look up by name on Telegram or Signal or whatever) helped solve some serious problem (or invested their money with an implausibly high rate of return). The fake nature of it is usually fairly obvious from the way that the bots make sure you see the name repeated several times with unsolicited, glowing testimonials.

But I had always assumed this was meant to trick actual people, rather than LLMs. Thanks for the food for thought.

Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans

#514

Post by dang »

SegfaultSeagull wrote: post #468
dang wrote: post #386

The rule has been around for years, but only in case law, i.e. moderation comments ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). What's new is that we promoted it to the guidelines. Fortunately I found some things we could cut as well, so https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html actually got shorter. --- Edit: here are the bits I cut: Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pic…

> I don't think we have to worry about cute animal pictures taking over HN. Challenge accepted.

The laws of unintended consequences and never posting overhastily. You think you know these things and then blam.

Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans

#516

Post by dang »

Someone1234 wrote: post #84

"AI-edited comments" is a very interesting one. Where is the line between a spelling/grammar/tone checker like Grammarly, that at minimum use N-Grams behind the scenes, and something that is "AI" edited? What I am asking is, is "AI" in this context fully featured LLMs, or anything that improves communication via an automated system. I think many people have used these "advanced" spellcheckers for years before Chatgpt…

You're touching on an important point. More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47342616.

All this stuff is in flux. I thought a lot about whether to add the "edited" bit - but it may change. What I deliberately left out was anything about the articles and projects that get submitted here. There's a lot of turbulence in that area too, but we don't yet have clarity, or even an inkling, of how to settle that one.

Edit: what I mean is this: while most of those submissions aren't very interesting, some really are. Here's an example from earlier today:

Show HN: Vanilla JavaScript refinery simulator built to explain job to my kids - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47338091

How do we close the aperture for the lame stuff while opening wider for the good stuff? That is far from clear.

Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans

#517

Post by gus_massa »

caaqil wrote: post #471
nkh wrote: post #286

What a welcome post. The whole reason I come here is to get thoughtful input from smart people, and not what I could get myself from an LLM. While we are at it; Think your own thoughts as well :) I know how easy it is to "let it come up with a first draft" and not spend the real effort of thinking for yourself on questions, but you'll find it's a road to perdition if you let yourself slip into the habit. Thanks to al…

[flagged]

Remember to upvote good comments!

I think the situation is better in small discussions, that sometimes are lucky and get more technical.

Once a discussion reach 100 or so comments, most of the time the discussion is too generic, but there are a few hidden good comments here and there.

Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans

#518

Post by lowbloodsugar »

dang wrote: post #386

The rule has been around for years, but only in case law, i.e. moderation comments ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). What's new is that we promoted it to the guidelines. Fortunately I found some things we could cut as well, so https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html actually got shorter. --- Edit: here are the bits I cut: Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pic…

Is there a distinction between AI generated and AI edited?

I wanted to share some context that might be helpful: I am autistic, and I have often received feedback that my communication is snarky, rude, or tone-deaf. At work, I've found it helpful to run some of my communications through an AI tool to make my messages more accessible to non-autistic colleagues, and this approach has been working well for me.

Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans

#520

Post by zahlman »

xbryanx wrote: post #37

Great message...but gosh, can someone throw 15px of padding on that ? I know HN is supposed to be minimal, but I had to check the URL to confirm that this was a real page because of the odd design.

It also says:

> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.

Feedback such as this is better as an email.

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