5 ms·

Tbh, I'm getting more frustrated with the ever-coming flood of "Bah I didn't read because it was obvious AI blah blah" which seemingly every single submission H

• blanched 5mo ago
  On the one hand, I get what you mean. Some genuinely interesting projects are immediately dismissed because AI was involved. On the other hand, I have two real problems with AI writing. 1. LLM prose is genuinely unpleasant to read. Its the exact same way that I strongly dislike reading LinkedIn posts or email marketing copy. It's all the same slimy tone that's using a certain sentence structure and rhetoric to try to be interesting without real substance. 2. Sometimes it feels like someone asking you to read an article with no punctuation or grammar: the author couldn't put in time/effort to make this enjoyable to read, so now I have to spend more time/effort reading it. Personally, I don't read through all marketing copy to see if "this one is going to be good", nor do I want to spend time providing constructive critical feedback on it.
  • embedding-shape 5mo ago
    > LLM prose is genuinely unpleasant to read What exact parts from the submission are "genuinely unpleasant to read" right now? Highlighting those could make it better rather than just filling HN with "LLM texts is boring to read". > Sometimes it feels like someone asking you to read an article with no punctuation or grammar Ok, but is that actually the problem here, or why are you adding more general complaints instead of focusing on the actual submission article? If you don't like it, don't read it, don't contribute to the discussion, I don't understand this obsession with "must let others know I don't like LLM writing, although I'm not 100% sure this submission actually suffers from the issues I don't like with LLM writing".
    • blanched 5mo ago
      I mean, you posted a comment and started a discussion about "LLM complaints on HN", so I replied to that. I didn't comment about the article itself. Part of my point is that the line between "written by an LLM" and "written for marketing" is so blurred that you can't always tell anyways.
    • tisdadd 5mo ago
      I mean, I got about half way through before going blah. But it is a fun looking project and it is great that they are pushing for an open platform. I like to read, but some writing is more enjoyable than others. If you want to contribute to their wiki, you can do so.
  • deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
• karlgkk 5mo ago
  If you can’t be bothered to write it, I can’t be bothered to read it.
  • embedding-shape 5mo ago
    But still be bothered to leave a generic complain on HN, which you ideally can copy-paste across all potential LLM-written comments? Something doesn't add up there, don't spend energy writing the comments if you cannot even be bothered to read it because no one was bothered to write it.
    • ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
      > But still be bothered to leave a generic complain on HN, which you ideally can copy-paste across all potential LLM-written comments? I mean, I personally wouldn't specifically on HN, since it's generally unproductive conversation, but yes? You say this as if there is some gotcha or contradiction there, but there is not. It is far, far, far less work to write a short comment than to read pages and pages of AI slop.
    • brookst 5mo ago
      It reminds me of high school, ages ago, when a friend would go on and on about how Depeche Mode weren’t musicians and how nobody cares about electronic music. I’m a little nostalgic for the hours, cumulatively probably weeks, that I heard about just how much he didn’t care about Depeche Mode.
    • King-Aaron 5mo ago
      Personally I detest AI generated creative content with every fibre of my being any will gladly rubbish on it without bothering to read the slop first.
      • embedding-shape 5mo ago
        Same, nothing I said is in conflict with that. I just equally despise HN comments vaguely complaining about maybe AI written content.
• monegator 5mo ago
  It is exhausting to always have to read word salads with little content. Every single fucking article with 20 lines of introduction before you get a chance for actual content. LLM slop then dilutes the information, and LLM slop always read the same way. You know, how easy it is to spot LLM generated content, it is actually refreshing when you can tell it's a human.
  • xgulfie 5mo ago
    LLM content is so exasperating to read, it always reads like a student trying to pad out their paper, or like a press release with no details
    • voisin 5mo ago
      I think this is due to lazy prompting. It isn’t hard to get an LLM to write concisely, with a logical flow and to be direct with the point you want made. I’d rather read something an LLM has written in this manner than a lot of things I come across written by humans. Regarding padding out word counts, I see this more often in newspapers and magazines than I do in AI-land. It’s like Netflix shows trying to meet an 8 or 10 episode minimum - horribly boring with unnecessary filler.
  • embedding-shape 5mo ago
    > It is exhausting to always have to read word salads with little content. Agreed, but you know how others solve this problem? We close the tab, move on with our lives, without feeling the need to leave the generic "This seems like it was mostly written with LLMs" slopplaint HN comment.
    • monegator 5mo ago
      > We close the tab, move on with our lives Which is what i usually do, but if in that moment i am particularly fed up with it i will also leave the comment. Then there are more zealous combatant that will pollute all the slop posts
    • suddenlybananas 5mo ago
• ctenb 5mo ago
  I was hesitant to post my comment. It's the first time I've complained about this on HN I think. And it's not only about the flow of the words at all, it's more about reading something that no one wrote. Especially if it's about a project that seems interesting, having AI written text tells me it's maybe not the passion project I otherwise would think it was.
  • embedding-shape 5mo ago
    So because this article seems AI written to you, this business and project which is on it's second iteration and been around for years already, maybe isn't a project of passion in your eyes? Seems like a huge logical leap to make, based on things that it seems you cannot even exactly quantify here, as you're still not pointing out what's wrong with the text, just saying that the text is somehow "lacking of soul" or something like that.
    • juanani 5mo ago
      [dead]
    • codechicago277 5mo ago
      The criticism is that this is a respectable project, so when you read obvious AI tells like “Honestly, …”, or “Flipper One isn't an upgrade to Flipper Zero — it's a completely different project with its own goals” in the first few paragraphs, it’s distracting and takes away from the content. A simple fix I use for AI writing is disclosing it. Here, a simple note that “this article was translated with AI assistance” would have made it much less distracting.
      • Semaphor 5mo ago
        The thing is, those are human-used words. Overused by AI, but very much not exclusive. Especially the way they were used here felt very different from slop as they made perfect sense.
      • ValdikSS 5mo ago
• cobolcomesback 5mo ago
  It is unreasonable to expect “specific complaints” about AI vomit like this, because one of the main issues with AI content is the ability to generate an overwhelming amount of it. It’s simply not feasible to give specific criticisms, because the criticism is with all of it. It’s like submitting a 10 page pull request to someone and then getting mad because the person didn’t give comments on every single snippet of code. The issue isn’t the snippets of code, the issue is the attitude that led someone to believe a 10 page PR is appropriate to begin with.
  • embedding-shape 5mo ago
    > It is unreasonable to expect “specific complaints” about AI vomit like this, because one of the main issues with AI content is the ability to generate an overwhelming amount of it. It’s simply not feasible to give specific criticisms, because the criticism is with all of it. But how would that make the "I won't read this because it feels like AI" comments more interesting to read? No one is forcing you to read this stuff, no one is forcing others to read this stuff as well. When I come across text that isn't great, for whatever reason, then I close the tab and move on with my life. Do I have to make it clear to the world what I think of the text in that specific article? Not really, it'll continue spinning like before, and people who want to read it will read it, others like me will just close it. It sucks that even if the topic of the submission is interesting, here we are now stuck yet again going back and forth if it's worth saying "I don't think that article was human written" or not in the comments, although I'd hope it'd be considered vastly off-topic.
    • cobolcomesback 5mo ago
      > No one is forcing you to read this stuff, no one is forcing others to read this stuff as well The front page of HN is limited real estate. I visit HN to discover and read interesting and quality content. Whether or not I am “forced” to read it, every piece of AI vomit that’s on the front page is taking a spot away from the real human content that I (and others) really want to see. > here we are now stuck yet again going back and forth if it's worth saying "I don't think that article was human written" I genuinely find this discussion in the comments to be of more value than reading the AI content in the article. People will discuss the content in front of them. If you don’t want that discussion to be about AI content, then the solution is to not submit (or upvote) AI content.
• lkey 5mo ago
  Wow! I hear you and you're absolutely right. It's not just short-sighted of <these commenters you hate>; It's self-destructive! * It's the job of the consumer to correct and edit the content they consume * Content creators have it hard enough ——— prompt-crafting and imagining transformative and disruptive new horizons in tech * So what if the prose is 4x longer than it should be? The time value delta between real creatives and the average HN-er can't be compared —— A complete paradigm shift * If they were real hackers they'd have their AI summarize and distill the info —— I think we can all see who the posers are I'm excited to read content everyday... 'slop'? That's a coward's word, I see past the prose into the core of the data space, and I'm stronger for it.
  • ryanschaefer 5mo ago
    The oversized emdashes are chefs kiss
  • m0llusk 5mo ago
    Kind of like digging in tar pits: Hey, look, there's another one of those.
• palmotea 5mo ago
  > If you have specific complaints about the text and content, bring those up instead, and we could discuss those or even correct the linked page itself, as it seems to be a wiki. But general complaints that could be copy-pasted for any submission, just so you can feel heard about that you think this was AI written, gets so tiring to read for every submission. No. And the reason is pretty simple: if you couldn't bother to write it, why should I bother to read it? And that's the problem with AI: it creates floods of that stuff and makes it hard to differentiate the good-faith use from the bad-faith use. The default can't be "reader, waste your time, even on garbage." A reader-respectful norm needs to be set, and those comments you complain about are part of that. The people making these things need to learn that they've got to put in the work if they want to be read (at least by serious audiences).
  • no-name-here 5mo ago
    Yeah, I'd be fine with it if every AI-generated posted was required to have “AI gen:” at the beginning of the title so that readers could make an informed decision about whether they should spend their time to read something that was not worth even 1 person’s time to write.
    • nosioptar 5mo ago
      I wish HN would do that, especially on show hn posts. Personally, I'd skip clicking on any slop links, which eliminates any anti slop comments I'd make.
    • embedding-shape 5mo ago
      Yeah, would totally resolve the problem of half the comments in each submission discussing if the author used AI or not, and if they did, exactly how much. People would just see the "AI gen:" and if they disagree, refrain from leaving comments about it, since everyone here on HN is so agreeable with each other.
• boesboes 5mo ago
  nah it is just super disrespectful to make me read something you were too lazy to read.
  • embedding-shape 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    • blanched 5mo ago
      Why is it entitled for other people to complain about certain types content, but fine for you to do it here?
      • embedding-shape 5mo ago
        The entitlement is in the "make me", no one is "making you" do anything, it's as much of a free world as it's always been. Complain on, but make it an actual complaint that raise some issue, instead of just "I don't like it", HN is meant for thoughtful discussions, those can include complaints, but complaints about the design, line-height, if the author used AI to spellcheck, that the scroll doesn't work and more just makes for a very boring and repetitive reading.
• sevenzero 5mo ago
  [flagged]
• armchairhacker 5mo ago
  I'm not convinced it's AI. But it has a problem common in AI, where it makes bold claims "we believe this is the only way to make a truly meaningful contribution to the open-source community and to education" without explaining, and too much filler ("...All the messy stuff companies usually keep behind closed doors. This is uncomfortable. We've never been this open before, and there's a real instinct to hide the unfinished work, the wrong turns, and the arguments...")
  • fidotron 5mo ago
    AI apes that because it's been status signaling american corpospeak for a while. Almost like they're trained on LinkedIn or something.
• InsideOutSanta 5mo ago
  > If you have specific complaints about the text and content, bring those up instead Accusing text of being written by an LLM is a specific complaint about the text. It's shorthand for "the text is overly verbose and uses the typical clichés LLMs are known for, which makes the text unpleasant to read (it's too much text and too many empty clichés) and also makes me distrust the text, because now I'm not sure anyone even looked over it and made sure it says what they wanted to say." It's just shorter to say "this sounds like it's written by AI."
• superloika 5mo ago
  The medium is the message. AI text is a bad message for me.
• nkrisc 5mo ago
  I like being warned about AI generated content before I waste time reading. If the author couldn’t even be bothered to write it, it’s a good sign I shouldn’t be bothered to read it.
• 0gs 5mo ago
  the flow of the words IS the content?
• zamadatix 5mo ago
  There was also a similarly common debate AI written/aided comments on HN until, ultimately, the guidelines were updated with an official stance saying they weren't allowed because HN is for human to human discussion. Honestly, the same kinds of comments and meta-complaints would occur for any of the things the guidelines comment on. It doesn't mean those common complaints would be wrong to have, that's part of how the guidelines get formed, it just means we haven't figured out what makes sense or not for the site yet. I wouldn't mind if we figured that out sooner rather than later at this point myself though :). Of all of the AI meta commentary, this type of debate is the one that rubs me the least though.
• deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
• parliament32 5mo ago
  I appreciate these comments, because they're a warning. If I'm on the fence about whether a link is worth a click-through or not, I'll have a peek at the comments first, and when I see something like this I don't bother (like with this article). If it's just long-term generated text, why bother posting the link at all? Why not ask for a bullet point summary and make a text post? Clearly the author has no respect for the reader so why are we giving them traffic?
• jchw 5mo ago
  Okay. So if I copy and paste an AI response written by Claude and you can't actually find a specific problem with it, are you still fine with that? If so, please start your own damn website and enjoy talking to AI and reading AI text all day. I'd really really rather not.
• ryanschaefer 5mo ago
  It’s the fat introduced by the process that annoys me the most. The user of the LLM had an idea, but it got greased up and packaged into something that the average person would create, not a specialist in the domain. It dumbs down everything into a single perspective / way of presenting a topic.
• pelasaco 5mo ago
  I guess it's the same with "I rewrote blah blah in Rust," where everyone knows it was vibe coded. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but Hacker News is a forum mostly read by people who enjoy hacking and building things. "Vibe coded codebases" and AI generated text generally aren't praised here, although they certainly are in other places. Or maybe it's just a matter of time until hackers get over or used with it. Time will tell...
• squidbeak 5mo ago
  I'm mostly the opposite. I'm glad to see people calling this out. Do we really want it to become normal to offload communication to another entity? "Claude, I need to send my wife an apology for shagging the secretary. Please make it tender and remorseful." A person's take on anything isn't their take any more if someone else articulates it, and there's a real risk we slip back to a hired scribe culture, with the multitude volunteering to return to illiteracy because they can't be arsed to type or even speak - beyond brief outlines. But the case is totally different for organizations and companies. They've always used copy editors to write their blurb, usually in a pasteurized flat business style that was always far removed from individuality and near-identical across organizations. I can't see why using AI in these cases makes any difference.
• NikolaNovak 5mo ago
  They are tiresome but also understandable. I do not want to read AI generated content, even when its correct, because at that point what's the value? I'm reading results of somebody else's prompt, might as well use my own. I'm surprised any author today isn't pre- or appending their articles with simple statement on AI usage. Transparency goes a long way.
  • codechicago277 5mo ago
    Agree, I find AI valuable for writing reports on the behavior of features in our codebase, but I’ve started sharing the prompt at the top of the file before sending it out, and reviewing the content line by line to catch obvious errors.