Comment by Kaytaro
2 days ago
The 2nd quote is when I realized this article was written or assisted by AI. Not that it's a big deal, that's our world now. But it's interesting to notice the subtle 'accent' that gives it away.
2 days ago
The 2nd quote is when I realized this article was written or assisted by AI. Not that it's a big deal, that's our world now. But it's interesting to notice the subtle 'accent' that gives it away.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43552105)
I'm not on board with accepting AI-written articles. This is an article with little to no human input, farming clicks for ad revenue, that doesn't even link to the forum post, which is far more interesting and has pictures: https://secondlifestorage.com/index.php?threads/glubuxs-powe...
The article contains little detail, and has lots of filler like the quote in the parent comment. It's highly upvoted on HN's front page, which is surprising to me because I think there is quite a bit of distaste here for low-effort content to drive clicks.
The thing the article is referencing is interesting, but the article is trash.
Agreed. We changed the URL to the original source from https://techoreon.com/a-man-powers-home-8-years-laptop-batte..., and banned the latter site. Thanks!
Edit: We also changed the title (submitted title was "A man powers home for eight years using a thousand old laptop batteries")
@dang, maybe we can get the link updated? This forum post is better in every way
> I'm not on board with accepting AI-written articles.
I haven't been on board with the "journalism" of the last fifty years, but this hasn't exactly prompted it to improve. Newspapers still have advertisements. Subscribers still have no say over editorial staff. The board still has say over the editorial staff. It's all fucked unless we can punt private ownership out of the equation.
80% of everything is crap. This isn't a very insightful position to take. One of the reasons I like Hacker News is it helps me find good stuff to read. Which this article isn't. So I will respectfully rebuff your rebuttal.
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What changed fifty years ago? You're pointing out issues that have existed for centuries.
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How can you even tell?
What about it gives off the AI smell to you?
Because it's presenting a bunch of smooth prose that utterly fails at logical continuity.
1. What point is the author trying to make? Leading off "Glubux even began" implies that the effort was extraordinary in some way, but if this action was "key to making the system work effectively and sustainably" then it can't really have been that extraordinary. The writing is confused between trying to make the effort sound exceptional vs. giving a technical explanation of how the end result works.
2. Why, exactly, would "removing individual cells and organizing them into custom racks" be "key to making the system work effectively and sustainably"?
3. How is the system's effectiveness related to its sustainable operation; why should these ideas be mentioned in the same breath?
4. Why is the author confident about the above points, but unsure about the level of "manual labor and technical knowledge" that would be required?
Aside from that, overall it just reads like what you'd expect to find in a high school essay.
Edit: after actually taking a look at TFA, another thing that smells off to me is the way that bold text is used. It seems very unnatural to me.
Nice try, ChatGPT.
More seriously, for me it's the "likely".
Using "likely" is indicative of AI now...?
Absurd.
The only thing as annoying as people using AI and passing it off as their own writing is the people who claim everything written not exactly how they are used to is AI.
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this part: "key to making the system work effectively and sustainably".
I think a giveaway is:
> This task, which likely required a great deal of manual labor and technical knowledge
If you were a human writing this, you might consider asking the man how much labour and knowledge the task took. Writing AIs don't ask questions.