4 ms·

IMO the more interesting question is why low-quality stuff like this keeps getting upvoted here. Feels like any submission that has AI in it automatically gets

IMO the more interesting question is why low-quality stuff like this keeps getting upvoted here. Feels like any submission that has AI in it automatically gets to the front page no matter the quality. Sad state of HN. I just can't imagine that people actually read this stuff and then decide to upvote because they found it useful. It's probably upvoted by people/bots who only read the title. The whole reason I come to HN in the first place is to filter out BS clickbait articles exactly like this one, not to have them fill the front page.

quietbritishjim 2y ago
I'm certainly not an extreme HN old timer, but I've been visiting for a fair number of years and I've seen this sort of complaint since I started, while article quality doesn't seem to have gone down noticeably. In fact, the site rules even caution against complaining that HN is "becoming Reddit", which is essentially the old version of this comment. The fact is that, even here, there will always be a few poor quality articles that slip through. BTW, pointing out that a particular article is poor, like qeternity's comment, is worthwhile. It's just comments that complain all of HN is going downhill that are tiresome.
- loveparade 2y ago
  Article quality has IMO gone down considerably in the last 2-3 years ever since LLMs became a thing. Probably not because LLM articles are upvoted by humans, but more likely because it's much easier to create and manage realistic bot fake accounts with LLMs. We're at a point where it's impossible to tell which users are bots and which are human by looking at their comments.
- benreesman 2y ago
  I’m an old-timer so I’ve seen multiple cycles of the front page being dominated by a PR blitz. Sometimes it’s startup/money-driven (e.g. mobile applications via smartphone adoption), sometimes it’s a community that organizes elsewhere to promote something to the HN readership in a disciplined way (e.g. Rust), sometimes it’s both (e.g. crypto). What feels different about this one is that it seems very “top down”, it has the flavor of almost lossless transmission of PR/fundraise diktat from VC/frontier vendor exec/institutional NVIDIA-long fund to militant AGI-next-year-ism at the workaday HN commenter level. Maybe the powers that be genuinely know something the rest of us don’t, maybe they’re just pot committed (consistent with public evidence), I’m not sure. It’s been kind of a while since the GPT3 -> GPT4 discontinuous event that looked like the first sample from an exponential capability curve. Since then it’s been like, it can use a mouse now. Well, it can kinda use a mouse now. Hey that sounds a lot like the robot in Her. But whatever the reason, this one is for all the marbles.
noduerme 2y ago
It's certainly AI-generated garbage. But it seems to have slipped from first place to 20th in the time it took to read your comment. If it was ranked up by bots, and say 50 fake accounts, they mistimed the velocity.
lukan 2y ago
You have some options here: - check out the new section and vote up good articles - flag bad submissions - or complain about it

quietbritishjim 2y ago

I'm certainly not an extreme HN old timer, but I've been visiting for a fair number of years and I've seen this sort of complaint since I started, while article quality doesn't seem to have gone down noticeably. In fact, the site rules even caution against complaining that HN is "becoming Reddit", which is essentially the old version of this comment. The fact is that, even here, there will always be a few poor quality articles that slip through. BTW, pointing out that a particular article is poor, like qeternity's comment, is worthwhile. It's just comments that complain all of HN is going downhill that are tiresome.

loveparade 2y ago
Article quality has IMO gone down considerably in the last 2-3 years ever since LLMs became a thing. Probably not because LLM articles are upvoted by humans, but more likely because it's much easier to create and manage realistic bot fake accounts with LLMs. We're at a point where it's impossible to tell which users are bots and which are human by looking at their comments.
benreesman 2y ago
I’m an old-timer so I’ve seen multiple cycles of the front page being dominated by a PR blitz. Sometimes it’s startup/money-driven (e.g. mobile applications via smartphone adoption), sometimes it’s a community that organizes elsewhere to promote something to the HN readership in a disciplined way (e.g. Rust), sometimes it’s both (e.g. crypto). What feels different about this one is that it seems very “top down”, it has the flavor of almost lossless transmission of PR/fundraise diktat from VC/frontier vendor exec/institutional NVIDIA-long fund to militant AGI-next-year-ism at the workaday HN commenter level. Maybe the powers that be genuinely know something the rest of us don’t, maybe they’re just pot committed (consistent with public evidence), I’m not sure. It’s been kind of a while since the GPT3 -> GPT4 discontinuous event that looked like the first sample from an exponential capability curve. Since then it’s been like, it can use a mouse now. Well, it can kinda use a mouse now. Hey that sounds a lot like the robot in Her. But whatever the reason, this one is for all the marbles.

noduerme 2y ago

It's certainly AI-generated garbage. But it seems to have slipped from first place to 20th in the time it took to read your comment. If it was ranked up by bots, and say 50 fake accounts, they mistimed the velocity.

lukan 2y ago

You have some options here: - check out the new section and vote up good articles - flag bad submissions - or complain about it