(1) Generated comments aren't allowed on HN - this rule predates LLMs but obviously applies even more now: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22generated%20comments%22&sort=byDate&type=comment
(2) If you see accounts that look like they're mostly posting genAI comments, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com.
> They're all sloppy. It reads nothing like an LLM.
I love how the bot forgot to read CLAUDE.md or whatever persona it set up (e.g., "make me text all lowercase, use -- instead of em dashes pleaseeee") for this single comment mixed in with the other ones:
Sadly, I think that bot comment without the 'snowhale' persona filter applied is what a lot of people here still think every bot is going to look and sound like, because the amount of people I've seen on here getting tricked by them and interacting with them has been a bit worrisome.
All:
(1) Generated comments aren't allowed on HN - this rule predates LLMs but obviously applies even more now: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22generated%20comments%22&sort=byDate&type=comment
(2) If you see accounts that look like they're mostly posting genAI comments, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. That's how I found my way to these cases.
>"But I use it to help my English!!!! Who cares if it's AI if the comment is good??????????"
Please don't post generated or AI-filtered posts to HN. We want to hear you in your own voice, and it's fine if your English isn't perfect.
If you don't flag this shit when you see it, HN is fucked. The commons is fucked. And you all keep upvoting and replying to comments from accounts that start posting 30 comments a day after 2 years of silence that are all one tightly packed paragraph of pablum with the same structure and tells that are harder to fix than replacing the em dash with a double hyphen.
---
P.S. The actual comment is (surprise!) completely wrong. Visit Settings -> AI Controls and you will see a granular set of feature switches under the master kill switch. Each has a clear title and description and is independent.
Besides the telltale "it's not x, it's y" used repeatedly in their comment history, I also struggle to imagine what would motivate a human to type such blandly agreeable jargon-filled pablum. I'd certainly prefer not read it, even if it didn't spill out of an LLM.
Thanks for making a stink about it.
(edit: I now see you used the p-word to describe it too, and normally I'd edit my post to use a different synonym, but "pablum" really is the perfect description. I also assume you already reported this account to hn@ so I won't bug the mods a second time.)
The homogenization of your computing life to revolve around a chatbot in a loop———is all you need!
Give in! Hackernews NEEDS you to use the 1000th vibecoded clawmolt because the influencers said so! Who needs neural net or web framework experience when you have claws?
tl;dr: We apologize for getting caught. Ars Subscriptors in the comments thank Ars for their diligence in handling an editorial fuckup that wasn't identified by Ars.
I don't know how you could possibly have that take away from reading this. They did a review of their context to confirm this was an isolated incident and reaffirmed that it did not follow the journalistic standards they have set for themselves.
They admit wrong doing here and point to multiple policy violations.
Reading between the lines, this is corporate-speak for "this is a terminable offense for the employees involved." It's a holiday weekend in the US so they may need to wait for office staff to return to begin the process.
Yeah, but the problem is that by not making it clear that additional actions may be coming, they're barely restoring credibility at all, because the current course of action (pulling the article and saying sorry) is like the bare minimal required to avoid being outright liars - a far cry from being credible journalists. All they've done is leave piles of readers (including Ars subscribers) going "wtf".
If they felt the need to post something in a hurry on the weekend, then the message should acknowledge that, and acknowledge that "investigation continues" or something like that
You don't announce that you're firing people or putting them on a PIP or something. Not only is it gauche but it makes it seem like you're not taking any accountability and putting it all in the employees involved. I assume their AI policy is fine and that the issue was it wasn't implemented/enforced, and I'm not sure what they can do about that other than discipline the people involved and reiterate the policy to everyone else.
They just needed to expand "At this time, this appears to be an isolated incident." into "We are still investigating, however at this time, this appears to be an isolated incident". No additional details required.
> It's a holiday weekend in the US so they may need to wait for office staff to return to begin the process.
That's not how it works. It's standard op nowadays to lock out terminated employees before they even walk in the door.
Sometimes they just snail mail the employee's personal possessions from their desk.
Moreover, Ars Technica publishes articles every day. Aside from this editor's note, they published one article today and three articles yesterday. So "holiday weekend" is practically irrelevant in this case.
> It's standard op nowadays to lock out terminated employees before they even walk in the door.
Some places.
You're speaking very authoritatively about what's "standard", in a way that strongly implies you think this is either the way absolutely everyone does it, or the way it should be done.
It's standard op nowadays to acknowledge that your experiences are not universal, and that different organizations operate differently.
> You're speaking very authoritatively about what's "standard", in a way that strongly implies you think this is either the way absolutely everyone does it, or the way it should be done.
Neither. I just meant it's common.
The comment I replied to said, "they may need to wait for office staff to return to begin the process."
I think the commonality of the practice shows that Ars Technica doesn't need to wait for office staff to return to begin the process, if office staff is even gone in the first place (again, Ars Technica appears to be open for business today). There's certainly no legal reason why they'd need to wait to fire people.
Does Ars Technica have a "policy" to only fire people on weekdays? I doubt it. Imagine reading that in the employee handbook.
Besides, President's Day is not a holiday that businesses necessarily close for. Indeed, many retailers are open and have specific President's Day sales.
> (again, Ars Technica appears to be open for business today). There's certainly no legal reason why they'd need to wait to fire people.
They normally aren't, they probably write the stories on the weekdays and prepare them to automatically publish over the weekend, with only a skeletal staff to moderate and repair the website. Legal, HR, and other office staff probably only work weekdays, or are contracted out to external firms.
Their CEO posted a quick note on their forums the other day about this which implied they don't normally work on holidays and it would take until Tuesday for a response.
> Their CEO posted a quick note on their forums the other day about this which implied they don't normally work on holidays and it would take until Tuesday for a response.
Judging from today's editors note, if things need to happen more quickly, then they do.
You're putting a lot of words in my mouth. I didn't call for anyone to be fired.
throw3e98 is the one who suggested that Ars Technica was going to fire people, but not for a few days. I merely suggested that if anyone was getting fired, they would likely already be fired.
I don't condemn Ars Technica for not firing the guy, but I do condemn Ars Technica for the terse hand-wave of an editor's note with no explanation, when on the same day we get a fuller story only from someone's personal social media account.
It's embarrassing for them to put out such a boilerplate "apology" but even more embarrassing to take it at its word.
It's such a cliche that they should have apologized in a human enough way that it didn't sound like the apology was AI generated as well. It's one way they could have earned back a small bit of credibility.
The comments are trending towards being more critical as of my posting. A lot more asking what they're going to do about the authors, and what the hell happened.
> Greatly appreciate this direct statement clarifying your standards, and yet another reason that I hope Ars can remain a strong example of quality journalism in a world where that is becoming hard to find
> Kudos to ARS for catching this and very publicly stating it.
> Thank you for upholding your journalistic standards. And a note to our current administration in DC - this is what transparency looks like.
> Thank you for upholding the standards of journalism we appreciate at ars!
> Thank you for your clarity and integrity on your correction. I am a long time reader and ardent supporter of Ars for exactly these reasons. Trust is so rare but also the bedrock of civilization. Thank you for taking it seriously in the age of mass produced lies.
> I like the decisive editorial action. No BS, just high human standards of integrity. That's another reason to stick with ARS over news feeds.
There is some criticism, but there is also quite a lot of incredible glazing.
Yeah, the initial comments are pretty glazey, but go to the second and third pages of comments (ars default sorts by time). I'll pull some quotes:
> If there is a thread for redundant comments, I think this is the one. I, too, will want to see substantially more followup here, ideally this week. My subscription is at stake.
> I know Aurich said that a statement would be coming next week, due to the weekend and a public holiday, so I appreciate that a first statement came earlier. [...] Personally, I would expect Ars to not work with the authors in the future
> (from Jim Salter, a former writer at Ars) That's good to hear. But frankly, this is still the kind of "isolated incident" that should be considered an immediate firing offense.
> Echoing others that I’m waiting to see if Ars properly and publicly reckons with what happened here before I hit the “cancel subscription” button
No reason to trust that the comment section is any more genuine than the deleted fake article. If an Ars employee used genAI to astroturf these comments, they clearly would not be fired for it or even called out by name.
Just like in the original thread that was wiped (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47012384), Ars Subscriptors continue to display lack of reading comprehension and jump to defending Condé Nast.
Incredible. When Ars pull an article and its comments, they wipe the public XenForo forum thread too, but Scott's post there was archived. Username scottshambaugh:
>Scott Shambaugh here. None of the quotes you attribute to me in the second half of the article are accurate, and do not exist at the source you link. It appears that they themselves are AI hallucinations. The irony here is fantastic.
Instead of cross-checking the fake quotes against the source material, some proud Ars Subscriptors proceed to defend Condé Nast by accusing Scott of being a bot and/or fake account.
EDIT: Page 2 of the forum thread is archived too. This poster spoke too soon:
>Obviously this is massive breach of trust if true and I will likely end my pro sub if this isnt handled well but to the credit of ARS, having this comment section at all is what allows something like this to surface. So kudos on keeping this chat around.
There are some various attempts, the problem is reliability - not that they're always up, but how do you trust them? If archive.org shows a page at a date, you presume it is true and correct. If I provide a PDF of a site at a date, you have no reason to believe I didn't modify the content before PDFing it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated
>Don't post generated comments or AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans.
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