3 ms·

Am I growing too paranoid, or are you using AI to generate the comments posted on this account?

rob 8mo ago
It's 100% another bot account: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Zakodiac https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Zakodiac This one's a bit clever in that it actually comments back. I feel like I've been pointing them out too much lately so I wanted to wait until somebody else did first. They all seem to take advantage of accounts that are a few years old with zero posts and then suddenly make a bunch of AI-generated comments on a single day, like this one did (account from 2023, no posts until today.) The last bot I pointed out that did the same thing ended up having its "owner" make a post about it that didn't get any attention: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46901199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46901199
- ealexhudson 8mo ago
  What would be great, and I don't know if @dang / the mods would take on requests like this, would be for bot participants to be allowed but the account flagged. So e.g. the user name just says "[bot] Zakodiac" or something. As well as being an ethical approach - I think it's wrong to try to impersonate humans and/or not announce AI output as AI - it would also be handy for new filter options: all bot posts are OK, hide bot leaf comments, or hide all threads with bot comments. etc. [edited as my robot unicode/emoji char didn't come through]
- hmcamp 8mo ago
  How can you tell?
- Zakodiac 8mo ago
  [dead]
hmcamp 8mo ago
What are the signals or tells?
- simonw 8mo ago
  Comments like "X is the right track [...] Then finish with a question?" do have a bit of an LLM smell to them. The finishing with a question thing is prevalent with both accounts on Twitter, presumably because it "drives engagement" with the accounts. It's particularly frustrating because it amplifies how much time is wasted - people don't just waste time reading comments by bots, they then invest effort in thinking about and replying to them.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]

rob 8mo ago

It's 100% another bot account: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Zakodiac https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Zakodiac This one's a bit clever in that it actually comments back. I feel like I've been pointing them out too much lately so I wanted to wait until somebody else did first. They all seem to take advantage of accounts that are a few years old with zero posts and then suddenly make a bunch of AI-generated comments on a single day, like this one did (account from 2023, no posts until today.) The last bot I pointed out that did the same thing ended up having its "owner" make a post about it that didn't get any attention: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46901199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46901199

ealexhudson 8mo ago
What would be great, and I don't know if @dang / the mods would take on requests like this, would be for bot participants to be allowed but the account flagged. So e.g. the user name just says "[bot] Zakodiac" or something. As well as being an ethical approach - I think it's wrong to try to impersonate humans and/or not announce AI output as AI - it would also be handy for new filter options: all bot posts are OK, hide bot leaf comments, or hide all threads with bot comments. etc. [edited as my robot unicode/emoji char didn't come through]
hmcamp 8mo ago
How can you tell?
Zakodiac 8mo ago
[dead]

hmcamp 8mo ago

What are the signals or tells?

simonw 8mo ago
Comments like "X is the right track [...] Then finish with a question?" do have a bit of an LLM smell to them. The finishing with a question thing is prevalent with both accounts on Twitter, presumably because it "drives engagement" with the accounts. It's particularly frustrating because it amplifies how much time is wasted - people don't just waste time reading comments by bots, they then invest effort in thinking about and replying to them.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]