Comment by schopra909
3 days ago
Honest question, why were folks posting AI generated comments in the first place? There's such a high inertia to comment. I only comment when I have something to contribute OR find something incredibly interesting.
So I'm just baffled, why anyone was using AI to generate comments. Like what was the incentive driving the behavior?
One trend I noticed here and, annoyingly, in my co-op, is that people will take a really dense and complex topic that's either currently engaged in deep conversation with multiple people or ripe for it, and then post a link to a Chatgpt conversation with a tag like "I didn't have time to get my thoughts together but here's a Chatgpt overview/some suggested solutions!" For me that's the equivalent of "I googled that for you," aka extremely rude.
Thanks, if I wanted Chatgpt's middle-of-the-bellcurve ass response I would have put the five seconds of effort in myself to type the question into its input field.
In addition to "Internet points" mentioned above - influence operations, both from nation states (e.g. the PRC 50 Cent Party, and probably the dozen most powerful nations in general), and from gray/black-market marketing companies.
Influence is valuable, and HN is a place that people who are aware of it trust highly.
(AI generation of random comments helps build "trustworthy" accounts that can then be activated when a relevant issue comes up)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
Ok, those are probably not deterred by guidelines though.
They absolutely are. You ever done any work fighting spam? It's all about making it hard and expensive enough for spam to land that it's no longer economically viable - you den't and can't actually stop all spam. Same thing here.
Sure, the bad actors don't particularly care for the guidelines - until their accounts start losing karma and getting dead'd/banned. Then they do, and that still materially improves the site.
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On HN, I sometimes used AI to change the tone of my comments - e.g., to add sarcasm or extra-polished corporate-speak for comical effect. OK, now I won't.
If you cant do the sarcasm yourself (and be witty enough), it's just not fun or improved in any way. Use of corporate speak is sarcasms on its own right, of course - but it only makes sense if it's something your are exposed to (and people can relate), instead of being fake.
Also, if you have to mark the sarcasm, then it's proper bad.
Most comments on here are really well-written. I can imagine someone for whom English is a second language (or a first language but aren't as good at writing as they'd like to be) using an LLM to "keep up." Of course, this sometimes works until they decide to post something without those tools.
Although I'm unsure about their purpose, I am fairly certain it is not an English as a second language matter.
Several people at my work do use LLMs for this in code, commit messages, and even on Slack. It may not be everyone or even a majority but it is something that some people legitimately do.
While many here are saying "who cares about your spelling and grammar," they have not been the people whose poor English gets them flagged as being somehow less intelligent or credible. Half the problem with LLMs is that they speak eloquently and we use that as a signal of someone's intelligence and trustworthiness. For someone who is otherwise intelligent but doesn't know English well this can be a major setback.
Same as always: being right about something
Reputation farming -> upvote rings -> black market promotion
Internet points.
which can then translate to real-world money points
How would karma on HN lead to this?
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