3 ms·

I think this is the third HN link I've clicked on in a row that leads to an LLM-generated article. I'm not opposed to AI, but I'm tired of seeing it quietly sub

I think this is the third HN link I've clicked on in a row that leads to an LLM-generated article. I'm not opposed to AI, but I'm tired of seeing it quietly substituted for human thought and expression.

alex_duf 5mo ago
I'm seeing this stance a lot "this is obviously AI generated" Why? What's LLM generated? How can you tell? To me what's obvious is that our trust system is already breaking down. Commenters accusing each other of being AIs is also another example of this.
- bakugo 5mo ago
  The entire article is just one long stream of short, punchy, declarative sentences. The latest Claude models are notorious for writing like this. There's also a few cookie-cutter patterns that should immediately jump out at you if you're at all familiar with AI writing, such as: > No hardware identifier is transmitted. No attestation is required. No certification layer determines who may participate. User privacy is structurally preserved, not promised. > Google Cloud Fraud Defense is not a reCAPTCHA update. The QR code is the visible mechanism, but device attestation is the real product.
- munchler 5mo ago
  The choppy language is the biggest trigger for me. Examples: * "With Fraud Defense, there was no process to respond to. The product launched. The requirements page went live." * "That is not a technical limitation waiting to be engineered around. It is the mechanism." * "The defeat is mechanical. Bot operators point a camera at a screen, a trivial automation with off-the-shelf hardware." I could be wrong, of course. Maybe humans are starting to write like LLM's, or maybe it's just confirmation bias on my part.
- gruez 5mo ago
  >Why? What's LLM generated? How can you tell? Not the guy you're responding to, but: 1. The high number of (em) dashes is suspect, though it's unclear whether they manually replaced the em dashes or is actually human generated. 2. "One additional failure worth noting: one incident response professional in the HN thread, raised a concern that operates independently of the bot problem" feels out of place for a content marketing piece. HN isn't popular enough to be invoked as a source, and referencing it as "the HN thread" seems even weirder, as if the author prompted "write a piece about how google cloud defense sucks, here are some sources: ..." 3. This passage is also suspect because it follows the chained negation pattern, though it's n=1 >No hardware identifier is transmitted. No attestation is required. No certification layer determines who may participate. edit: I also noticed there are 2 other comments that are flagged/dead expressing their reasons.
  - bakugo 5mo ago
    Looks like the moderators are actively deleting comments that call out AI generated articles now. Grim. This comment will probably be deleted too.
    - greenchair 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - tomhow 5mo ago
        Quite the opposite. That user's comment was killed because it was classified as AI-generated. Of course it was a false positive due to the AI-generated text they quoted. These systems aren't foolproof. But we're very serious about preserving HN for curious conversation between humans.
        bakugo 5mo ago
        > But we're very serious about preserving HN for curious conversation between humans. How does that work when most of the articles posted are now AI generated? I've ranted about this before, but the gist of the problem is that you're expecting humans to put effort into discussing something that the "author" did not consider worth the effort of creating. There's a fundamental imbalance there that causes the whole "the author put effort into creating this so you should put effort into discussing it" system that encourages high-effort posting to fall apart.
        tomhow 5mo ago
        If it’s bad writing it’s not a good fit for HN and should be flagged. Writing that’s obviously AI-assisted is bad writing. We’re fine with it being flagged and down-weighted off the front page. We routinely refrain from re-upping posts that are obviously AI-assisted. Things still slip through because we don’t see everything in advance.
    - dang 5mo ago
- Terretta 5mo ago
  Look at the number of : per paragraph. What human puts two : in a single sentence? "One additional failure worth noting: one incident response professional in the HN thread, raised a concern that operates independently of the bot problem: …" The ersatz Ted Talk meets LinkedInfluencer rhythm of sentences, the throat clearing fillers as connective tissue… Or Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing
  - mananaysiempre 5mo ago
    I do. I usually notice and try to rephrase, though. (Also, you can pry my em dashes[1] from my cold, dead hands.) [1] https://www.gally.net/miscellaneous/hn-em-dash-user-leaderboard-v2.html https://www.gally.net/miscellaneous/hn-em-dash-user-leaderbo... says mean 1.64, maximum 13 em dashes per pre-ChatGPT comment.
- nitwit005 5mo ago
  They can't tell. It has become a statistical thing. There will exist some percentage of them that assumes an item is AI generated. With enough people seeing something, you'll see the accusation.
- michaelcampbell 5mo ago
  "this is AI" is the new "This is shopped", but without the "I can tell by the pixels" rejoinder. I mean sometimes they're right, but honestly in this day and age does that even matter?
- tkel 5mo ago
  It's really obvious. The repeated information. The very. short. sentences. The incessant detail. The tangents that go nowhere. And LLMS always try to structure the entire essay into topical sub-sections.

alex_duf 5mo ago

I'm seeing this stance a lot "this is obviously AI generated" Why? What's LLM generated? How can you tell? To me what's obvious is that our trust system is already breaking down. Commenters accusing each other of being AIs is also another example of this.

bakugo 5mo ago
The entire article is just one long stream of short, punchy, declarative sentences. The latest Claude models are notorious for writing like this. There's also a few cookie-cutter patterns that should immediately jump out at you if you're at all familiar with AI writing, such as: > No hardware identifier is transmitted. No attestation is required. No certification layer determines who may participate. User privacy is structurally preserved, not promised. > Google Cloud Fraud Defense is not a reCAPTCHA update. The QR code is the visible mechanism, but device attestation is the real product.
munchler 5mo ago
The choppy language is the biggest trigger for me. Examples: * "With Fraud Defense, there was no process to respond to. The product launched. The requirements page went live." * "That is not a technical limitation waiting to be engineered around. It is the mechanism." * "The defeat is mechanical. Bot operators point a camera at a screen, a trivial automation with off-the-shelf hardware." I could be wrong, of course. Maybe humans are starting to write like LLM's, or maybe it's just confirmation bias on my part.
gruez 5mo ago
>Why? What's LLM generated? How can you tell? Not the guy you're responding to, but: 1. The high number of (em) dashes is suspect, though it's unclear whether they manually replaced the em dashes or is actually human generated. 2. "One additional failure worth noting: one incident response professional in the HN thread, raised a concern that operates independently of the bot problem" feels out of place for a content marketing piece. HN isn't popular enough to be invoked as a source, and referencing it as "the HN thread" seems even weirder, as if the author prompted "write a piece about how google cloud defense sucks, here are some sources: ..." 3. This passage is also suspect because it follows the chained negation pattern, though it's n=1 >No hardware identifier is transmitted. No attestation is required. No certification layer determines who may participate. edit: I also noticed there are 2 other comments that are flagged/dead expressing their reasons.
- bakugo 5mo ago
  Looks like the moderators are actively deleting comments that call out AI generated articles now. Grim. This comment will probably be deleted too.
  - greenchair 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - tomhow 5mo ago
      Quite the opposite. That user's comment was killed because it was classified as AI-generated. Of course it was a false positive due to the AI-generated text they quoted. These systems aren't foolproof. But we're very serious about preserving HN for curious conversation between humans.
      - bakugo 5mo ago
        > But we're very serious about preserving HN for curious conversation between humans. How does that work when most of the articles posted are now AI generated? I've ranted about this before, but the gist of the problem is that you're expecting humans to put effort into discussing something that the "author" did not consider worth the effort of creating. There's a fundamental imbalance there that causes the whole "the author put effort into creating this so you should put effort into discussing it" system that encourages high-effort posting to fall apart.
        tomhow 5mo ago
        If it’s bad writing it’s not a good fit for HN and should be flagged. Writing that’s obviously AI-assisted is bad writing. We’re fine with it being flagged and down-weighted off the front page. We routinely refrain from re-upping posts that are obviously AI-assisted. Things still slip through because we don’t see everything in advance.
  - dang 5mo ago
Terretta 5mo ago
Look at the number of : per paragraph. What human puts two : in a single sentence? "One additional failure worth noting: one incident response professional in the HN thread, raised a concern that operates independently of the bot problem: …" The ersatz Ted Talk meets LinkedInfluencer rhythm of sentences, the throat clearing fillers as connective tissue… Or Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing
- mananaysiempre 5mo ago
  I do. I usually notice and try to rephrase, though. (Also, you can pry my em dashes[1] from my cold, dead hands.) [1] https://www.gally.net/miscellaneous/hn-em-dash-user-leaderboard-v2.html https://www.gally.net/miscellaneous/hn-em-dash-user-leaderbo... says mean 1.64, maximum 13 em dashes per pre-ChatGPT comment.
nitwit005 5mo ago
They can't tell. It has become a statistical thing. There will exist some percentage of them that assumes an item is AI generated. With enough people seeing something, you'll see the accusation.
michaelcampbell 5mo ago
"this is AI" is the new "This is shopped", but without the "I can tell by the pixels" rejoinder. I mean sometimes they're right, but honestly in this day and age does that even matter?
tkel 5mo ago
It's really obvious. The repeated information. The very. short. sentences. The incessant detail. The tangents that go nowhere. And LLMS always try to structure the entire essay into topical sub-sections.