I'm here to read what actual humans think. If I wanted to read what an LLM thinks, I could just ask it. But here's where it gets tricky: Do I prefer low-effort, off-the-top-of-my-head reactions, as long as it is human? Or do I want an insightful, well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced? Am I here to read authentic humans because I value authenticity for its own sake (like preferring Champagne instead of…
By this logic, you might consider vibe coding a browser plugin that takes any HN comment less than 50 words and auto-expands it into an “insightful, well thought-out response.”
Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
651–660 of 1001 posts
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#652Agree, AI generated articles & comments provide little to none value other than the original prompt. Please just post the original prompt instead.
Here is where I'd like to push back just a little. Not all AI prompting is expanding the prompt. What if the original prompt is 1000 words, includes 10 scientific articles by reference (boosting it up to 10000) , and the AI helps to boil it down to 100 words instead? I'd argue that this is probably a rather more responsible usage of the tools. And rather more pleasant to read besides. Whether it meets the criterion i…
I'd rather read the 11000 word prompt, in that case. I'd rather not have my text-only feed get the TikTok treatment.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#653What 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…
You are missing the point here.
It is not about whether the comment was written by AI, a native English speaker, English major, or ESL.
What matters is an idea or an opinion. That is all what matters.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#654It's time to change the name from Hacker News to Human News, let's go!
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#655How about comments that include AI output if labeled? Earlier today I remembered that there was a Supreme Court case I'd heard about 35 years ago that was relevant to on an ongoing HN discussion, but I could not remember the name of the case nor could I find it by Googling (Google kept finding later cases involving similar issues that were not relevant to what I was looking for). I asked Perplexity and given my recol…
I would still say no, there is something about finding the words for yourself, even if they aren't as elegant as an Ai can make. It's fine, most humans prefer imperfection. The point is we don't want to read Ai summaries, we can make one ourselves if we want. Personally, with certainty, I don't want to read one from Perplexity on the basis that they do the Ai for Trump Social. (reverse-kyc if you are not aware) For s…
> I would still say no, there is something about finding the words for yourself, even if they aren't as elegant as an Ai can make. It's fine, most humans prefer imperfection.
In this instance the only reason I considered using the AI summary was that there was no Wikipedia article about the case (which surprised me as it is one of the foundational cases in Commerce Clause law...although maybe all the points in it are covered in later cases that do get their own Wikipedia articles?).
Normally I'd just copy Wikipedia's summary into my comment and link to Wikipedia and to the decision itself for people that want the details.
> The point is we don't want to read Ai summaries, we can make one ourselves if we want.
How would you know if you wanted one? Someone mentioned they would like to see a case on this subject but they didn't think it would ever happen. I knew of a case on the subject, found the reference, and posted the link. At that point we are already on a tangent from what most of the thread is about and from what most people reading it care about.
The point of the summary would be to let you know if the case might actually be relevant to anything you cared about in the thread. (The answer would probably be "no" for 95+% of the people reading the comment).
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#656How about comments that include AI output if labeled? Earlier today I remembered that there was a Supreme Court case I'd heard about 35 years ago that was relevant to on an ongoing HN discussion, but I could not remember the name of the case nor could I find it by Googling (Google kept finding later cases involving similar issues that were not relevant to what I was looking for). I asked Perplexity and given my recol…
It sounds like you already know how to improve your comments, how about just doing those things.
Well, I keep missing the "serve"/"server" thing because spell checkers think "server" is a real word so don't flag it. :-)
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#657I'm here to read what actual humans think. If I wanted to read what an LLM thinks, I could just ask it. But here's where it gets tricky: Do I prefer low-effort, off-the-top-of-my-head reactions, as long as it is human? Or do I want an insightful, well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced? Am I here to read authentic humans because I value authenticity for its own sake (like preferring Champagne instead of…
> But here's where it gets tricky Pretty sure this comment is AI
Now I know how the Salem witches felt. How can I prove that it's not AI?
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#658I hate how easy AI has made outsourcing thinking. You can literally type fragments of a thought into $CHAT_ASSISTANT and get a super polished response back that gets you 99% of the way there. It's almost like we, collectively, looked at the final scene of WALL-E and decided "Yes! Gimme that!"
Is this true for you? How often do you get 99% of a complete, valuable thought?
My experience is that it is quite rare. Occasionally high 90's for simple things of low value, 60's or less for things that approximate "thinking". At best it feels like a new search channel that amalgamates data better, and hasn't been thoroughly polluted by ads and SEO - yet.
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#659"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 on…
Do the guidelines also disallow comments along the lines of "according to , "? (I ask this given that "according to a Google search, " is allowed, AFAIK.)
Re: Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
#660I'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…
I don't really think that good writing and LLM writing looks all that similar. It's not always easy to spot (and maybe HN users aren't always doing a great job at it), but even the best LLM output tends to have an "LLM smell" to it that's hard to avoid. Like, sure, LLM writing is almost always grammatically correct, spelled correctly, formatted correctly, etc., which tends to be true of good writing. But there's a ce…
I can’t help thinking how ironic it would be if your comment is from an llm