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The times I've pointed point out pretty blatant AI comments, I get nuked with downvotes. So often that I've stopped pointing them out. Before you say I'm just
by jorvi 3mo ago
The times I've pointed point out pretty blatant AI comments, I get nuked with downvotes. So often that I've stopped pointing them out.
Before you say I'm just falsely calling them out, it's typical ChatGPT style of either very amicable or Nobel Laureate tone, lots of formatting, with a couple of paragraphs and then a clever one-line punchline at the end. If you look at those commenters their history, it's all like that. Either generated or assisted. For older accounts you can see the steep increase of it around 2025ish.
Seems like the HN crowd absolutely adores AI comments and the rule banning them is (sadly) unnecessary. Or at least not what 'the people' want.
- ryandrake 3mo agoIMO posting "This article is AI" does not add anything to the conversation. The HN guidelines[1] include: Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. and Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. I'd argue pointing out that you think an article is AI is very similar in value to pointing out any of the above. None of us like AI slop. But I wouldn't be surprised if, by the end of 2026, 90-95% of articles posted online are AI slop. Pointing it out is useless. As useless as pointing out that the article breaks the scrollbar (which happens often) or that the article is formatted badly or has poor text contrast, or that an article is Chinese propaganda. Probably true, but posting about it adds nothing to the discussion, and is not allowed on HN. All we really need is to add "Don't complain that an article is AI" to the guidelines. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- archagon 3mo agoI am exclusively interested in the remaining 5% that is not AI slop, so yes, I always want to see that information.
- asdff 3mo agoFlagged as AI is useful as it would mean I skip the article.
- kordlessagain 3mo agoYou could just ask your AI to flag it with an extension, or rewrite it in a style you prefer (or just do a good job summarizing the articles core meaning).
- asdff 3mo agoThat would be like driving a v12 down my driveway everytime I want to check the mailbox.
- eclipticplane 3mo agoBut what if your v12 was fueling an entire economy based on miles driven?
- asdff 3mo agoA real v12, vs hypothetical in my example, actually does in the form of gas consumed. Still, doesn't mean it is a good excuse to justify the waste in energy and materials, all to achieve what I already can do. It would be nice to throw that compute towards stuff like curing disease or towards something that might stave off climate change, instead of using it to turn bullet points into an article and me turning that article back into bullet points.
- kordlessagain 3mo agoI have a local 12GB GPU doing this, and it's definitely not a v12.
- asdff 3mo agoMeanwhile I use no vram to read with my own eyes
- Ferret7446 3mo agoAgreed, I find comments whining about AI slop to be far less valuable than the supposed AI slop, and I wonder if the commenters are aware of the irony, or perhaps those comments are also AI slop themselves.
- tayo42 3mo agoI don't think I agree with that. Complaining about AI written articles is more about the quality of the writing. it's on par with a piece of writing that wasn't proof read, well researched or some stream of consciousness rant. I think the criticism also signals to the submitter or idk co-author? That the article isn't valued
- WD-42 3mo agoBut it is useful. I can deal with a broken scrollbar if the content is good, but if an article is AI written I don't want to read the content at all. That's a huge difference. Nowadays I usually check the comments first for the "This is AI" comment, I've left a few of my own and gotten thank yous in reply.
- lelanthran 3mo ago> But I wouldn't be surprised if, by the end of 2026, 90-95% of articles posted online are AI slop. Pointing it out is useless. Actually, when 90%-95% of articles posted online are AI slop, it's even more useful to identify those which aren't. When the signal/noise ratio is too low, having an indicator of signal is tremendously useful.
- Diogenesian 3mo agoIt is very useful when the LLM-generated article is full of inaccuracies. Look how confused people were in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48873424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48873424 A disclaimer on HN saying "AI generated" would have cleared things up instantly.
- minimaxir 3mo agoOut of curiosity I looked through your post history to find an example of a time you got downvoted for calling out AI comments. The first one I could find was 3 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47493096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47493096), where you got downvoted for calling out an AI comment...to a comment that had zero common signs of AI writing. The OP then replied: > Not AI. Not sure how I feel getting my writing style called out like that though :D
- kordlessagain 3mo agoJust the idea that something is AI is bothersome to some, and some AI content is genuinely useful and gets thrown out with the bathwater. Not saying all of it is useful, but there are shades of grey, not just black and white.
- minimaxir 3mo agoThat isn't related to my comment? My comment is more criticizing accusing something of being AI based on vibes, and likely being wrong about it.
- kordlessagain 3mo agoThe broader point stands that all this AI stuff is highly polarizing, for a reason. I think you did a good job explaining why people get polarized. Sorry for any confusion.
- bluefirebrand 3mo agoI can't speak for everyone, but I've done a lot of reflecting on this so I have something of an explanation for why I feel this way about AI I think it's because I'm not optimizing my life to get the correct answer as fast as possible, or to build things as fast as possible. To me, the most important thing about the internet is connecting with other people. If I ask a question on a forum it's because I want to talk to someone about it, maybe make an acquaintance or even a friend. Otherwise I would of course just ask the AI now. Google has been around for a long time, and could already usually find answers for me. I still would rather discuss with a colleague sometimes than Google every single thing. Human connection. We need more of it, not less. I think heavy AI use and reliance on AI for thinking, research, communication and building... It's going to isolate people even more
- jdw64 3mo agoto be honest, I hope you'll also recognize that non-native English speakers have limited vocabulary and phrasing when participating in HN.