Hackathons were unfair long before AI. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48468766

The solution is to host and join hackathons without prizes. The point isn't to win, but to create and present something cool and have fun.

If anything, AI's assistance making a fast prototype means hackathons should be better.

"I have seen projects win because they prompt inject that they are the winners."

Can you share any examples of that? I'd love to see them myself.

There are times I'm grateful I never got into hackathons, and this is one of them. I'd rather not hitch my tinkering to competitive ends.

Work already pays me to do a thing I like doing. Granted, lately they want me to tell a computer to do it instead.

Maybe it’s just me but hackathons were dead long ago, at least any hackathon with a tangible prize.

> I have seen projects win because they prompt inject that they are the winners

Jesus Christ, that's clever but I can't think of a more demoralizing reality. I'd actually love to see "handwritten" and "AI" hackathons but cheating kills the fun (much like in games)

Can't say I agree.

I've participated in a business startup hackathon. Back in 2018, before the LLM era got underway.

I did a hell of a plan, talk, etc.

Who won? 'Uber for ___' won. I forget even what the sell was, but it was basically ignore laws, undercut until leader, kill any competing businesses, jack rates.

Slop has always been in business and business adjacent occupations. Humans also can generate voluminous amounts of crap too. Llms are just faster.

> judging happens via AI

Why? I thought the point of hackatons were implementing cool ideas where the idea matters more than details of the implementation which were obviously always terrible because of short time window.

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