I strongly doubt it. My AIs can generate infinite HN comments for me. I don’t do that because it isn’t interesting. But if the day arises where it is, I want that personalized content. Not something someone else copy pasted.
(I say this as someone who finds Moltbook fascinating and push myself to use AI more in my work and day-to-day life. The fact that it’s borderline trivial to figure out which HN comments are AI generated speaks to the motivation behind this guideline.)
Perhaps not. But if it reduces the junk right now, it's a good policy for right now. I'll take it, for now. If it needs revisited, then it should be revisited when circumstances change enough to warrant that.
> AI is a great equalizer when it comes to communication in English.
Good argument for it but I think 80/20 split applies here. It is likely that 80% of the time it is used to farm for upvotes and add noise.
> And despite what people say, the way you write is very much judged as an indication of your education and intelligence.
I have come across plenty of content and online interactions in English where English was the Author's 2nd or even 3rd language and I find that putting a small disclaimer about this fact is more than enough to bypass such judgement.
Edit for amichail, since I'm rate-limited at the moment: I don't want flawless English writing. I want real ideas from real people. If I wanted flawless English writing, I'd be reading The New Yorker, not HN.
Good point. There is a difference between using AI as a translator and using AI to write comments from scratch... Maybe the HN guide lines could reflect this.
> policy will not age well
I strongly doubt it. My AIs can generate infinite HN comments for me. I don’t do that because it isn’t interesting. But if the day arises where it is, I want that personalized content. Not something someone else copy pasted.
(I say this as someone who finds Moltbook fascinating and push myself to use AI more in my work and day-to-day life. The fact that it’s borderline trivial to figure out which HN comments are AI generated speaks to the motivation behind this guideline.)
Perhaps not. But if it reduces the junk right now, it's a good policy for right now. I'll take it, for now. If it needs revisited, then it should be revisited when circumstances change enough to warrant that.
Elaborate.
AI is a great equalizer when it comes to communication in English.
And despite what people say, the way you write is very much judged as an indication of your education and intelligence.
People who don't like the use of AI to help you write really don't want those signals to go away.
They want to be able to continue to judge others based on their English grammar instead of on the content of their writing.
> AI is a great equalizer when it comes to communication in English.
Good argument for it but I think 80/20 split applies here. It is likely that 80% of the time it is used to farm for upvotes and add noise.
> And despite what people say, the way you write is very much judged as an indication of your education and intelligence.
I have come across plenty of content and online interactions in English where English was the Author's 2nd or even 3rd language and I find that putting a small disclaimer about this fact is more than enough to bypass such judgement.
Translation is the one exception I could see.
Edit for amichail, since I'm rate-limited at the moment: I don't want flawless English writing. I want real ideas from real people. If I wanted flawless English writing, I'd be reading The New Yorker, not HN.
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Good point. There is a difference between using AI as a translator and using AI to write comments from scratch... Maybe the HN guide lines could reflect this.
Fuck is this really where we're at. People claiming policies to prevent LLM use is because they want to be able to judge people.
Pretty soon we're gonna see arguments that its discriminatory.
why?