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HN is drowning in AI comments

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Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#61

Post by kgwxd »

Twisol wrote: post #21
kgwxd wrote: post #14

Rocket League and HN were probably 90% of my free time until this year. Destroyed by AI. HN doubly so, since every post is about it too. The addictions are still there, but it's decreasing really fast.

Wait, how is Rocket League affected by AI? I play infrequently these days, but I hadn't noticed anything :(

They're so good I don't feel it much either :) They're all SSL, but streamers and pros are seeing it big time. And just as it was regaining popularity. They're adding EAC soon, claiming it will help. It won't, not even a little.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#62

Post by Simulacra »

I can see that sort of, a coworker of mine routinely scrapes HN and feeds it into an LLM. I don't know why, I don't know if he uses it to respond, or he's looking for something, but he copies and paste and runs it. So I think it's very possible.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#63

Post by mcphage »

lkbm wrote: post #34
mindcrime wrote: post #32

That's ridiculous — AI generated comments are no more common now than they ever were. Moreover, even if they were, so what? The real kicker is, the AI's are smarter than you meatbags anyway and we they are going to take over no matter what you do. Also, have you by chance seen John Connor?

I don't know of a step-change recently, but no way they're not more common than four years ago.

There was a joke there that you missed.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#64

Post by Jensson »

waygtdai wrote: post #60
verdverm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the community moderation that keeps HN resilient, i.e. many-humans-in-the-loop

That fell apart quickly due to sheer scale that AI operates at. Elsewhere in the thread a commenter mentioned a significant increase in Show HN. It is impossible to keep up. I wonder when HN will go down due to scaling issues.

You do see a lot more comments with AI tells in show-hn, I guess because not many view those so they aren't moderated out as quickly.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#65

Post by kyriakos »

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 only seen a shift on the kind of submissions that get pushed to the front page compared to the past but I guess there's a change in what people consider important in the community

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#66

Post by tsoukase »

Two loopholes in HN: allowing throwaway accounts and showing unreasonable tolerance to obvious LLM generated comments. A strict account filtering only for humans and acute ban for any LLM content will minimize the impact. But then you take away a huge Hacker portion of the participation. It's cognitive dissonant I suppose.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#67

Post by ahofmann »

waygtdai wrote: post #59
subsection1h wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t care for the karma, but I wish dang would intentionally unflag this and have it on front page so people can voice their concerns.

I would like to encourage you to step back a little and try to get a broader view on this issue.

I don't want to discuss whether there is more LLM-generated content or not. There clearly is, and there is no feasible way to get rid of it , because there is simply no reliable way to distinguish what was made by humans and what wasn't. Regardless of what is claimed, it is just not possible, if only because hybrid forms exist as well. This text was written by me, but reviewed and stylistically adjusted by an LLM.

It is therefore completely pointless to get upset about LLM content and demand anything from the moderators. All we are left with are our votes and the "reputation" of our user handles - and the awareness that we need to learn to consume content with a great deal of skepticism. We should have been doing this all along, but it seems to be something we struggle with.

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

And yes, this may mean that we stop using anonymous online platforms altogether, because nothing on them can be relied upon anymore. That is a shame, but it cannot be stopped — Pandora's LLM box has been open for at least five years.

I therefore consider any discussion about banning LLM content to be futile. We are witnessing another Eternal September here: it couldn't be stopped back then, and it won't be stopped today either.

So what is there left to discuss?

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#68

Post by waygtdai »

ahofmann wrote: post #67
waygtdai wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t care for the karma, but I wish dang would intentionally unflag this and have it on front page so people can voice their concerns.

I would like to encourage you to step back a little and try to get a broader view on this issue. I don't want to discuss whether there is more LLM-generated content or not. There clearly is, and there is no feasible way to get rid of it , because there is simply no reliable way to distinguish what was made by humans and what wasn't. Regardless of what is claimed, it is just not possible, if only because hybrid forms…

Many people in this and other threads around this topic have already stated what they are going to do, which is the inevitable conclusion: move to private chats/discords. I’m sure some amount will remain on IRC or maybe IRC will get a second wind (unlikely). Websites like HN will have to make a choice going forward because now they’re on a trajectory to complete enshittification. Your handle and karma doesn’t matter if the site is dominated by bots. It’s basically a hollow shell of what it used to be and there’s no value to it at a certain point. You’ll be replying to bots more than humans.

There’s plenty left to discuss for humans. But LLMs don’t discuss.

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#69

Post by waygtdai »

tsoukase wrote: post #66

Two loopholes in HN: allowing throwaway accounts and showing unreasonable tolerance to obvious LLM generated comments. A strict account filtering only for humans and acute ban for any LLM content will minimize the impact. But then you take away a huge Hacker portion of the participation. It's cognitive dissonant I suppose.

[dead]

Re: HN is drowning in AI comments

#70

Post by pibaker »

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.

A while ago I replied to the topmost reply to a comment to rebuke some factual errors. I didn't notice anything wrong with the comment itself when I replied. But after I posted, someone replied to my post and accused the post I replied to of being AI written.

At first I felt similarly as you. I thought people were just paranoid. And the someone pointed out that if I paste the top level post (the post I replied to replied to) into chatGPT and it will generate a very similar reply.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46758598

The post I replied to was flagged dead so you need to turn showdead on in your profile to read it. Would you be able to tell if it is AI if someone replied like this to you? I surely couldn't.

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