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Comment by 9dev

4 hours ago

Can't we even write a short text like this without LLMs anymore, not even when it's really important, when it's about humans against the inhumane?

I think it is great that people point out LLM generated articles here on HN. Sadly, it feels like I am slowly loosing my skill to identify LLM speak. Maybe I am getting worn out of all LLM content... So, please, list the indicators and telltale signs from the specific article or blog post (like others have done here already). At least I would appreciate it a lot.

  • > It is not age verification. It is identity verification.

    > You can change a password. You cannot change your face.

    > This is not a popularity contest, and refusal is not a vote you are trying to win

    These were a couple sentences that were immediate flags to me. There've been countless articles written on this (I can dig them up if you want), but IMO there are pretty clear semantic rhythms you start to notice.

    It is not foo, it is bar. You can zip, you cannot zap.

    • I agree that these are signs of AI, but they're also the way that people write. I use the "it's not X it's Y" framing a lot of the time because it's a quick way to get my point across. It's probably the sign of a bad writer because I can't come up with a different/better way to say the same thing, but I'm not AI.

    • If anyone uses a couple of these red flags to dismiss the entire article and the underlying idea, that says a lot more about them than the author.

    • These are normal patterns in US English. The zeal to accuse limits the scope of possible responses. There are all sorts of things humans do when writing that LLMs mimic — em-dashes for instance — that are entirely legitimate ways to communicate but get shouted down for… reasons?

      Surely you’re aware that LLMs were trained on the ways humans write specifically to mimic them? Yes? So what’s the gripe? Someone cranked out a “thought piece” with no effort or actual thinking on their own?

      But thats the promise of AI.

      So are you advocating doing away with AI tools and research? Maybe we start asking “should we” not “can we”? Now that is a position I might get behind.

      But really how the hell am I supposed to write at all when nearly ANYTHING I write could be interpreted as AI-generated and then shouted down in some quasi-ad-hominem attack on me while not engaging with any points made?

      It is the utter end of written discussion.

    • My brain skims the entire blog before reading it and if I see two short sentences with dots and negation or even one single em dash, I ctrl+w out

  • > Sadly, it feels like I am slowly loosing my skill to identify LLM speak.

    Just read a few fiction books written in 2026 in Amazon Kindle Unlimited. Your brain will be trained to recognize AI-Slop Speak in No Time.

I think the trouble is the LLM is quite catchy and so gets more upvotes. We are losing to the clankers!

it's wild to me how many AI written articles get front page on HN

  • I'm always amazed too. I waste so much time clicking on links like that only to find slop that just wastes my time.

    I'm guessing a huge number of people never even bother to click on the article and just comment based on the title, so there's that. Then there's cases where they are sympathetic to the subject or opinion and talk about that in the comments and ignore that the machine-written article doesn't actually contribute to the conversation at all.

  • Yeah. If the "don't post AI generated comments" guideline was extended to cover posts, I wonder what % of recent front page articles would be impacted.

It is upsetting. Is it worth surrendering one's practice of thinking and communicating effectively in order to resist corporate overreach? Or is such a neglect doomed to result in the very problem of passivity that this post pushes back against?

Exactly. I stopped reading part way through. The first thought was ... this seems like quite a lot of words to say not an awful lot of contents. And then the sentences started jumping out.

> A verification regime does not need your approval — it needs your participation

Ugh

I also will not take any article or website seriously if it uses AI generated graphics/art.