alt Hacker NewsHere's the thing, HN'ers have detected 200 of the last 10 AI written articles posted. We really seem to suck at it.
Worse the tools for detecting it have an insane false detection rate. ESL = FP. Good writer = FP. Garbage human slop writer = A'ok.
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Detection tools in general have a bad selectivity and sensitivity, but there's consensus that Pangram is generally accurate and reliable. I don't use these tools much, but that's the word among people I trust, and that's what I see when I try it.
And, well, neither of us really knows the ground truth. Maybe the guy who has a repo filled with articles co-authored by Claude is actually not posting slop this time and HN users are wrong and Pangram flagging it is just a false positive. But I can't blame anyone for being tired of giving this the benefit of the doubt.
I'm ESL. The mistakes I make are part of what makes me human. If HN'ers are having an allergic reaction at the first hint of slop, it's because we've been drowning in it for months.
I am very much looking forward to the day when I can use em-dashes again. I genuinely like em-dashes. Such a great punctuation mark!
To my ears, I find accusations of "it was written by AI" to be a bit MAGA-ish. It's a far too convenient way to say that I don't like what someone is saying without actually having to think for yourself (or heaven forbid, actually read it).