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

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

#881

Post by ethbr1 »

yunseo47 wrote: post #877

Whether it’s code, general text, or university assignments, the core issue is taking responsibility for one's own work. While I share the concerns raised in this thread, I believe the focus on 'LLM usage' is a bit of a red herring. The fundamental principle of ownership hasn't changed with the advent of LLMs; the tool itself isn't the issue, but rather the abdication of responsibility by the author. For instance, if…

> the tool itself isn't the issue, but rather the abdication of responsibility by the author

The biggest current social problem with AI content is our collective lack of transparency into how much human responsibility was taken.

Give a Because even if no edits needed to be made, the former carries a lot more signal than the latter, because it reduces risk of AI slop and therefore makes the content more valuable.

At the same time, it also costs more time to produce, so in any competitive marketplace (YouTube, paid comments, startup code, etc.) the unvetted AI content will dominate.

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

#882

Post by 9rx »

> HN is for conversation between humans.

What kind of human has an orange head and beige body with text written all over? An HN conversation is clearly with a computer program. Anthropomorphizing it is certainly an interesting take, but one that is bound to lead to misinterpretations and misunderstandings. The medium is the message. To avoid problems it is best to not play pretend.

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

#883

Post by wiether »

spzzz wrote: post #875

Me not native speeker. AI help me too get my point front much more cleanly. It hard not look like dummy. Im of course exaggerating, but it is so easy just to run the text through an AI to make it sound "better" without changing what im trying to express. --- I’m not a native speaker, so AI helps me get my point across more clearly. It’s hard not to come across like a dummy otherwise. Of course I’m exaggerating, but i…

As a non native speaker, seeing how many natives keep making the "then/than" mistake, I'm comfortable looking dumb.

I only use AI on critical communications, to make sure that the meaning of my message is the right one.

Otherwise I'm fine making mistakes and I encourage people to correct me.

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

#884

Post by mzl »

monkeydust wrote: post #879
uni_baconcat wrote: post #754

For quite a while, I like use LLM to refine and fix my grammar issue, but my colleagues and professors reminds me that it was way too obvious. They said they can tolerate some mistakes in my words, but no tolerance for AI generated content.

Are people so tuned for this that I need to think about deliberately adding some mstakes into what I write?

No, but a lot of AI-adjsuted wordings have the very idiosyncratic AI-style that is prevalent in the AI-slop that is everywhere, and that style has quickly become associated with writing that is generally void of content and insight. So it is natural to get gut-reactions to the typical phrasings that have become associated with AI.

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

#885

Post by nebula8804 »

uni_baconcat wrote: post #754

For quite a while, I like use LLM to refine and fix my grammar issue, but my colleagues and professors reminds me that it was way too obvious. They said they can tolerate some mistakes in my words, but no tolerance for AI generated content.

This appears to be leading to people being super quiet about their AI usage. It really feels as if everyone is using it massively but keeping quiet about it. This is a guess as I haven't gone around and asked every single person about their AI usage.

I am reminded about a question I posted in a Vintage Apple subreddit. I described the problem and all the steps I took to try and resolve it. In the middle of the text I also hinted that I asked AI and that it gave be a wildly strange answer which I dismissed but that it gave me hints to continue onwards.

The majority of answers were focused around that one sentence and completely ignoring the rest of the post(and even the problem I was posting about). I was ridiculed (sometimes aggressively) for even considering trying the AI. Eventually someone finally answered the question, I thanked them and continued to get downvoted massively.

While I get that the vintage community can attract some colorful characters this was an interesting observation at how badly they reacted to the post. I've since refrained from mentioning AI and furthermore, trying to limit my involvement with communities like that and ironically working on better ways to use AI to solve problems so as to minimize dealing with them(finding ways of providing more system level data to the AI in my prompt).

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

#886

Post by stavros »

dang wrote: post #755
uni_baconcat wrote: post #754

For quite a while, I like use LLM to refine and fix my grammar issue, but my colleagues and professors reminds me that it was way too obvious. They said they can tolerate some mistakes in my words, but no tolerance for AI generated content.

Thanks for putting this so nicely! We'd much rather hear you in your own voice, and the cost of a few mistakes is far less than the cost of losing that. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Eh, history has shown me that that's incorrect, though. In my culture, we're direct and just say what we want to say, whereas in US culture you have to be very circumspect or you get a bunch of downvotes. I've used an LLM to give me feedback so I can "anglicize" my comments, otherwise I get downvoted to hell.

Even in this comment, I initially wrote the start as "you're wrong", but then had to catch myself and go back and soften it to "that's incorrect", even though the meaning is the exact same. The constant impedance mismatch is tiring.

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

#887

Post by Brajeshwar »

mulhoon wrote: post #856

As a type nerd, I was very happy with Grammarly swapping my dashes to em dashes. But now everyone associates em dashes with AI, I can no longer enjoy that luxury.

Obsidian has a Community plugin called “Smart Typography”[1] which was updated 4 years ago. That is one of my very few default plugins. I want my quotes curly, em-dashes corrected, and arrows shown as arrows.

These are also my defined rules in Grammarly (might be moving to LanguageTool).

1. https://github.com/mgmeyers/obsidian-smart-typography

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

#888

Post by wubbfindel »

teiferer wrote: post #874
mulhoon wrote: post #856

As a type nerd, I was very happy with Grammarly swapping my dashes to em dashes. But now everyone associates em dashes with AI, I can no longer enjoy that luxury.

I wonder how many people change how they express themselves just to sound less like AI.

I've been a regular users of the em dash for years before it became associated with AI output — and I refuse to let that change me!

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

#889

Post by skywhopper »

calmoo wrote: post #782
uni_baconcat wrote: post #754

For quite a while, I like use LLM to refine and fix my grammar issue, but my colleagues and professors reminds me that it was way too obvious. They said they can tolerate some mistakes in my words, but no tolerance for AI generated content.

If you're referring to speaking in English - in general I think there is a huge amount of flexibility for making mistakes in English. I'm a native speaker, I am so used to hearing various levels of English from different nationalities that i'm almost blind to it. I much prefer to hear someones true voice even if there are a few inaccuracies, so much of a person's personality is conveyed through their quirks and mista…

I agree with this, and I’d even say that all the grammatical and spelling mistakes, awkward constructions, and labored phrasing is what makes a person’s posts sound like themselves. If people commonly use LLMs to rewrite themselves, then everyone starts sounding the same. And the posts, the users, and the entire site all become a lot less interesting.
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