It is unreasonable to expect “specific complaints” about AI vomit like this, because one of the main issues with AI content is the ability to generate an overwhelming amount of it. It’s simply not feasible to give specific criticisms, because the criticism is with all of it.

It’s like submitting a 10 page pull request to someone and then getting mad because the person didn’t give comments on every single snippet of code. The issue isn’t the snippets of code, the issue is the attitude that led someone to believe a 10 page PR is appropriate to begin with.

I was hesitant to post my comment. It's the first time I've complained about this on HN I think. And it's not only about the flow of the words at all, it's more about reading something that no one wrote. Especially if it's about a project that seems interesting, having AI written text tells me it's maybe not the passion project I otherwise would think it was.

> If you have specific complaints about the text and content, bring those up instead

Accusing text of being written by an LLM is a specific complaint about the text. It's shorthand for "the text is overly verbose and uses the typical clichés LLMs are known for, which makes the text unpleasant to read (it's too much text and too many empty clichés) and also makes me distrust the text, because now I'm not sure anyone even looked over it and made sure it says what they wanted to say."

It's just shorter to say "this sounds like it's written by AI."

If you can’t be bothered to write it, I can’t be bothered to read it.

I'm mostly the opposite. I'm glad to see people calling this out. Do we really want it to become normal to offload communication to another entity?

"Claude, I need to send my wife an apology for shagging the secretary. Please make it tender and remorseful."

A person's take on anything isn't their take any more if someone else articulates it, and there's a real risk we slip back to a hired scribe culture, with the multitude volunteering to return to illiteracy because they can't be arsed to type or even speak - beyond brief outlines.

But the case is totally different for organizations and companies. They've always used copy editors to write their blurb, usually in a pasteurized flat business style that was always far removed from individuality and near-identical across organizations. I can't see why using AI in these cases makes any difference.

There was also a similarly common debate AI written/aided comments on HN until, ultimately, the guidelines were updated with an official stance saying they weren't allowed because HN is for human to human discussion. Honestly, the same kinds of comments and meta-complaints would occur for any of the things the guidelines comment on. It doesn't mean those common complaints would be wrong to have, that's part of how the guidelines get formed, it just means we haven't figured out what makes sense or not for the site yet.

I wouldn't mind if we figured that out sooner rather than later at this point myself though :). Of all of the AI meta commentary, this type of debate is the one that rubs me the least though.

I appreciate these comments, because they're a warning. If I'm on the fence about whether a link is worth a click-through or not, I'll have a peek at the comments first, and when I see something like this I don't bother (like with this article).

If it's just long-term generated text, why bother posting the link at all? Why not ask for a bullet point summary and make a text post? Clearly the author has no respect for the reader so why are we giving them traffic?

I like being warned about AI generated content before I waste time reading. If the author couldn’t even be bothered to write it, it’s a good sign I shouldn’t be bothered to read it.

I'm not convinced it's AI.

But it has a problem common in AI, where it makes bold claims "we believe this is the only way to make a truly meaningful contribution to the open-source community and to education" without explaining, and too much filler ("...All the messy stuff companies usually keep behind closed doors. This is uncomfortable. We've never been this open before, and there's a real instinct to hide the unfinished work, the wrong turns, and the arguments...")

nah it is just super disrespectful to make me read something you were too lazy to read.

On the one hand, I get what you mean. Some genuinely interesting projects are immediately dismissed because AI was involved.

On the other hand, I have two real problems with AI writing.

1. LLM prose is genuinely unpleasant to read. Its the exact same way that I strongly dislike reading LinkedIn posts or email marketing copy. It's all the same slimy tone that's using a certain sentence structure and rhetoric to try to be interesting without real substance.

2. Sometimes it feels like someone asking you to read an article with no punctuation or grammar: the author couldn't put in time/effort to make this enjoyable to read, so now I have to spend more time/effort reading it.

Personally, I don't read through all marketing copy to see if "this one is going to be good", nor do I want to spend time providing constructive critical feedback on it.

The medium is the message. AI text is a bad message for me.

> If you have specific complaints about the text and content, bring those up instead, and we could discuss those or even correct the linked page itself, as it seems to be a wiki. But general complaints that could be copy-pasted for any submission, just so you can feel heard about that you think this was AI written, gets so tiring to read for every submission.

No. And the reason is pretty simple: if you couldn't bother to write it, why should I bother to read it?

And that's the problem with AI: it creates floods of that stuff and makes it hard to differentiate the good-faith use from the bad-faith use. The default can't be "reader, waste your time, even on garbage." A reader-respectful norm needs to be set, and those comments you complain about are part of that. The people making these things need to learn that they've got to put in the work if they want to be read (at least by serious audiences).

the flow of the words IS the content?

Okay. So if I copy and paste an AI response written by Claude and you can't actually find a specific problem with it, are you still fine with that? If so, please start your own damn website and enjoy talking to AI and reading AI text all day. I'd really really rather not.

I guess it's the same with "I rewrote blah blah in Rust," where everyone knows it was vibe coded. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but Hacker News is a forum mostly read by people who enjoy hacking and building things. "Vibe coded codebases" and AI generated text generally aren't praised here, although they certainly are in other places. Or maybe it's just a matter of time until hackers get over or used with it. Time will tell...

They are tiresome but also understandable. I do not want to read AI generated content, even when its correct, because at that point what's the value? I'm reading results of somebody else's prompt, might as well use my own.

I'm surprised any author today isn't pre- or appending their articles with simple statement on AI usage. Transparency goes a long way.

It’s the fat introduced by the process that annoys me the most. The user of the LLM had an idea, but it got greased up and packaged into something that the average person would create, not a specialist in the domain. It dumbs down everything into a single perspective / way of presenting a topic.

Wow! I hear you and you're absolutely right.

It's not just short-sighted of <these commenters you hate>; It's self-destructive!

* It's the job of the consumer to correct and edit the content they consume

* Content creators have it hard enough ——— prompt-crafting and imagining transformative and disruptive new horizons in tech

* So what if the prose is 4x longer than it should be? The time value delta between real creatives and the average HN-er can't be compared —— A complete paradigm shift

* If they were real hackers they'd have their AI summarize and distill the info —— I think we can all see who the posers are

I'm excited to read content everyday... 'slop'? That's a coward's word, I see past the prose into the core of the data space, and I'm stronger for it.

It is exhausting to always have to read word salads with little content.

Every single fucking article with 20 lines of introduction before you get a chance for actual content. LLM slop then dilutes the information, and LLM slop always read the same way. You know, how easy it is to spot LLM generated content, it is actually refreshing when you can tell it's a human.

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