4 ms·

I aint got none.

dang 1mo ago
That's fine, but it would be helpful to see examples. People often make generic claims about astroturfing, bots, etc. that don't hold up in practice when we look at the data. Bots and genai comments also exist, of course, and are not allowed here (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated).
- cljacoby 1mo ago
  Does HN do proactive detection and/or flagging of comments determined to be AI generated? I understand if information publicized on how this process might work is intentionally restricted, so as not to be easily circumvented. I'm also not asking this in a pointed or judgmental way with respect to HN, I'm mostly just curious how various social platforms are approaching this problem.
  - dredmorbius 1mo ago
    Yes, to the extent that mods will admonish what appear to be AI-generated comments: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20can%20you%20please%20not%20post%20ai-generated&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...> Articles are a fuzzier area AFAIU: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48887149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48887149> (Not a mod myself, though I watch mod actions fairly closely.)
- brazukadev 1mo ago
  > People often make generic claims about astroturfing, bots, etc. that don't hold up in practice when we look at the data. I'd be very careful with believing the system that looks for bots and astroturfing works well enough to confidently say that. Some of the people, corporations and institutions interested in manipulating HN and its audience are quite capable.
  - dang 1mo ago
    Of course it's possible that there's a SSM (Sufficiently Smart Manipulator), which by definition we can't know about. But despite not everything being knowable, there are still things one can say. This topic has a long history on HN. Here's one long post I wrote a number of years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725. Others here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22sufficiently%20smart%20manipulator%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Here's an example of what we can say: if user A accuses user B of astroturfing, spying, manipulating, etc., and a quick look at B's posting history shows that they were posting to HN about, let's say, Erlang in 2019, the odds of that accusation being correct go down to negligible. It's possible, of course, that B was already working for "people, corporations and institutions interested in manipulating HN" 7 years ago. It's also possible that malefactors came along later and found a way to pay or coerce B into doing their dirty work (edit: or hack their account). But at this point one becomes unmoored from any evidence at all. The far more likely explanation is that A is slinging cheap accusations because they disliked something B said and are resorting to the internet's favorite trope ("you're a shill!"). When I say "People often make generic claims about astroturfing, bots, etc. that don't hold up in practice when we look at the data", what I mean is that the vast majority of such claims boil down to cases like the one I just described or something similar.
    - brazukadev 1mo ago
      Sure, that makes sense. Thanks for replying. > Here's an example of what we can say: if user A accuses user B of astroturfing, spying, manipulating, etc., and a quick look at B's posting history shows that they were posting to HN about, let's say, Erlang in 2019, the odds of that accusation being correct go down to negligible about this one tho I have noticed bot behavior (including posts that are incoherent) from old accounts - so there is the risk of 2 things going on: - people getting hacked and their accounts being used for that - some people that just decided to connect a bot to their account or use their account themselves to astroturf. which is way more difficult to spot. Anyway, I don't have a solution for those problems. You have an interesting and difficult work :)) Have a nice day, dang!
- my-next-account 1mo ago
  Hey dang, could you look Animats comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49458418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49458418 Other folks are also calling it out as AI. Thank you for your hard work bicep emoji
  - dang 1mo ago
    It got classified as human by our software, which of course is nowhere near perfect. Animats has been unmistakeably human for a long time though, so unless borderline comments become a pattern, I'm not worried.

I aint got none.

dang 1mo ago

That's fine, but it would be helpful to see examples. People often make generic claims about astroturfing, bots, etc. that don't hold up in practice when we look at the data. Bots and genai comments also exist, of course, and are not allowed here (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated).

cljacoby 1mo ago
Does HN do proactive detection and/or flagging of comments determined to be AI generated? I understand if information publicized on how this process might work is intentionally restricted, so as not to be easily circumvented. I'm also not asking this in a pointed or judgmental way with respect to HN, I'm mostly just curious how various social platforms are approaching this problem.
- dredmorbius 1mo ago
  Yes, to the extent that mods will admonish what appear to be AI-generated comments: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20can%20you%20please%20not%20post%20ai-generated&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...> Articles are a fuzzier area AFAIU: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48887149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48887149> (Not a mod myself, though I watch mod actions fairly closely.)
brazukadev 1mo ago
> People often make generic claims about astroturfing, bots, etc. that don't hold up in practice when we look at the data. I'd be very careful with believing the system that looks for bots and astroturfing works well enough to confidently say that. Some of the people, corporations and institutions interested in manipulating HN and its audience are quite capable.
- dang 1mo ago
  Of course it's possible that there's a SSM (Sufficiently Smart Manipulator), which by definition we can't know about. But despite not everything being knowable, there are still things one can say. This topic has a long history on HN. Here's one long post I wrote a number of years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725. Others here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22sufficiently%20smart%20manipulator%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Here's an example of what we can say: if user A accuses user B of astroturfing, spying, manipulating, etc., and a quick look at B's posting history shows that they were posting to HN about, let's say, Erlang in 2019, the odds of that accusation being correct go down to negligible. It's possible, of course, that B was already working for "people, corporations and institutions interested in manipulating HN" 7 years ago. It's also possible that malefactors came along later and found a way to pay or coerce B into doing their dirty work (edit: or hack their account). But at this point one becomes unmoored from any evidence at all. The far more likely explanation is that A is slinging cheap accusations because they disliked something B said and are resorting to the internet's favorite trope ("you're a shill!"). When I say "People often make generic claims about astroturfing, bots, etc. that don't hold up in practice when we look at the data", what I mean is that the vast majority of such claims boil down to cases like the one I just described or something similar.
  - brazukadev 1mo ago
    Sure, that makes sense. Thanks for replying. > Here's an example of what we can say: if user A accuses user B of astroturfing, spying, manipulating, etc., and a quick look at B's posting history shows that they were posting to HN about, let's say, Erlang in 2019, the odds of that accusation being correct go down to negligible about this one tho I have noticed bot behavior (including posts that are incoherent) from old accounts - so there is the risk of 2 things going on: - people getting hacked and their accounts being used for that - some people that just decided to connect a bot to their account or use their account themselves to astroturf. which is way more difficult to spot. Anyway, I don't have a solution for those problems. You have an interesting and difficult work :)) Have a nice day, dang!
my-next-account 1mo ago
Hey dang, could you look Animats comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49458418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49458418 Other folks are also calling it out as AI. Thank you for your hard work bicep emoji
- dang 1mo ago
  It got classified as human by our software, which of course is nowhere near perfect. Animats has been unmistakeably human for a long time though, so unless borderline comments become a pattern, I'm not worried.