Using real member accounts to post the fake AI content is so much worse.
I can’t even imagine the thought process that led to thinking it was a good idea to generate fake posts but assign them to real users. If they were going to fake posts, why not fake the users, too? They turned one bad decision into a much worse decision.
It must be sad to see your proud little corner of the internet decline in popularity, but this move took whatever positive historical vibes it had and lit them on fire.
> the thought process that led to thinking it was a good idea
Seemingly that can be found here: physicsforums [dot] com/threads/official-response-to-allegations-of-ai-misuse-in-pf.1078532/
> During the past several months, to counter declining engagement, I experimented with generative AI, intending to add value to "thin threads", especially those with 0 replies.
> For experiment #3, I used real accounts that I considered to be decade-old spammers as best I could tell, but I can't be 100% certain. I categorically regret and reject such a shameful and unethical decision.
(that website also modifies your clipboard when you copy stuff, big fuck you to the site owner, seemingly lacking any sort of guiding compass, good riddance to them)
But what's the end game envisioned here? Turning the website into an LLM proxy and hoping enough suckers look at your ads instead of those from other sloperators?
"Fake posting activity" is a weak framing. It is real activity. The risk in allowing AI-generated content is that users will be able to sniff out low-quality content produced by AI that they don't find engaging, but if they don't like it they can always leave. If users love it then AI-generated content is not bad at all.
So, how did all these hacked accounts or backdated posts happen? The article never says that even though the author talks to the site founder and admin.
It’s especially disappointing to see this done in such an unnecessarily dishonest way. If the project truly wanted to add value, I can imagine interesting AI uses that don’t lie or trick people. You could post a correctly-dated AI Answer (and prompt it to use the web search tool and cite sources) to posts that apparently never got one, and credit the exact model used, which would help future readers decide how confident they might be (a GPT-3 answer vs a GPT-6 Astra answer, for instance, are very different).
Heck, you could even engagement-farm if you have to, by taking science stories in the news and say, generating a poll to try to spur discussion.
But what they actually chose to do is super gross, helps nobody, hurts the site’s reputation, and even devalues the site tremendously as possible training data for AI. (Which, some AI detractors might actually be happy about, but I think isn’t really a good thing.)
It's ironic because the article (and many comments in the previous submission) are about how one shouldn't mess with user data to show fake engagement!
Also this is a good example of the trend that has already been ongoing on HN since 2022. I think one other long-lasting HNer is working on a similar analysis of HN at the moment.
HN essentially became mainstream after the New Yorker profile, Reddit's degradation due to the mod blackout and API changes, and Lemmy flopping.
I've gotten my HN back to the pre-2022 consensus but it takes severe filtering, with around 200 posts being hidden a day. And it's those posts that drive the majority of discourse on the platform now.
The fact that throwaways like you are so normalized is a huge reason.
HN has also gotten divorced from tech and water-cooler conversations in much of the tech industry, and a lot of that seems to be because HN no longer has the same plurality of Bay/NYC/Seattle/Austin techies that it used to.
Edit: can't reply
> 2022 is when tech funding dried up...
Tech funding didn't dry up then. It just coencided with the time period that most vintages that originated in 2010-14 were closing out, and those that originated in 2016-18 were hitting their 5 year mark.
This meant a lot of dry-powder didn't get deployed until 2023-24.
> stands to reason that we ran out of hacker topics...
They are still being posted at the same rate based on my filtering. The difference is a massive deluge in non-"traditional HN" related content being posted, and the younger generation of techies and founders (those below 35) not using HN.
2022 is when tech funding dried up, so it stands to reason that we ran out of hacker topics. The odd person still doing something cool in their basement for fun does not supply a sufficient stream of curiosities to keep the feed full. That required the unique time (ZIRP, etc.) when people were paid handsomely to explore cool things day in, day out.
That's a good point. Fwiw, I use throwaways because I don't want certain types of users to know anything about me. I wouldn't have felt this way, say, 5 years back.
I built my own system using both sentiment polarity analysis, hard-coded logic, and some semi-active tuning, but I'd rather not divulge specifics. IMO anyone can spin up their own similar system.
Politics is discussed significantly more on HN after 2022 than before. I'll wait on that HNer to finish their analysis and post it on here, but they've also noticed the same trend.
The "Dead Internet Theory" is too sad and too easy. I'd propose the "Dead Society Theory", the history of the Internet from the late 2000s to the late 2010s left people socially scare, paranoid, angry and hopeless about the possibility of communicating online.
Which is to say the Internet can be "dead" without being filled with undetectable or detectable fake posts, not that fake posts help things.
Using AI to fake posting activity is bad.
Using real member accounts to post the fake AI content is so much worse.
I can’t even imagine the thought process that led to thinking it was a good idea to generate fake posts but assign them to real users. If they were going to fake posts, why not fake the users, too? They turned one bad decision into a much worse decision.
It must be sad to see your proud little corner of the internet decline in popularity, but this move took whatever positive historical vibes it had and lit them on fire.
[delayed]
> the thought process that led to thinking it was a good idea
Seemingly that can be found here: physicsforums [dot] com/threads/official-response-to-allegations-of-ai-misuse-in-pf.1078532/
> During the past several months, to counter declining engagement, I experimented with generative AI, intending to add value to "thin threads", especially those with 0 replies.
> For experiment #3, I used real accounts that I considered to be decade-old spammers as best I could tell, but I can't be 100% certain. I categorically regret and reject such a shameful and unethical decision.
(that website also modifies your clipboard when you copy stuff, big fuck you to the site owner, seemingly lacking any sort of guiding compass, good riddance to them)
But what's the end game envisioned here? Turning the website into an LLM proxy and hoping enough suckers look at your ads instead of those from other sloperators?
Helping people who have questions about physics
"Fake posting activity" is a weak framing. It is real activity. The risk in allowing AI-generated content is that users will be able to sniff out low-quality content produced by AI that they don't find engaging, but if they don't like it they can always leave. If users love it then AI-generated content is not bad at all.
So, how did all these hacked accounts or backdated posts happen? The article never says that even though the author talks to the site founder and admin.
PhysicsForum's admin admitted creating them shortly after: <https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/official-response-to-a...>
It's heavily implied the owner had them generated by a bot, potentially as part of his day job in SEO
It’s especially disappointing to see this done in such an unnecessarily dishonest way. If the project truly wanted to add value, I can imagine interesting AI uses that don’t lie or trick people. You could post a correctly-dated AI Answer (and prompt it to use the web search tool and cite sources) to posts that apparently never got one, and credit the exact model used, which would help future readers decide how confident they might be (a GPT-3 answer vs a GPT-6 Astra answer, for instance, are very different).
Heck, you could even engagement-farm if you have to, by taking science stories in the news and say, generating a poll to try to spur discussion.
But what they actually chose to do is super gross, helps nobody, hurts the site’s reputation, and even devalues the site tremendously as possible training data for AI. (Which, some AI detractors might actually be happy about, but I think isn’t really a good thing.)
Previous discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42816284 - Jan 24, 2025 | 154 comments
This comment above is date mangled due to HN second chance pool <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308>.
It's ironic because the article (and many comments in the previous submission) are about how one shouldn't mess with user data to show fake engagement!
Completely forgot about PhysicsForums.
Also this is a good example of the trend that has already been ongoing on HN since 2022. I think one other long-lasting HNer is working on a similar analysis of HN at the moment.
Edit: can't reply
> Appreciate some more details...
It's their story to tell. Not mine.
Say more?
I've been reading HN since 2013 and the quality has gone down, kind of like eternal September.
2022 was when the degradation really took hold.
HN essentially became mainstream after the New Yorker profile, Reddit's degradation due to the mod blackout and API changes, and Lemmy flopping.
I've gotten my HN back to the pre-2022 consensus but it takes severe filtering, with around 200 posts being hidden a day. And it's those posts that drive the majority of discourse on the platform now.
The fact that throwaways like you are so normalized is a huge reason.
HN has also gotten divorced from tech and water-cooler conversations in much of the tech industry, and a lot of that seems to be because HN no longer has the same plurality of Bay/NYC/Seattle/Austin techies that it used to.
Edit: can't reply
> 2022 is when tech funding dried up...
Tech funding didn't dry up then. It just coencided with the time period that most vintages that originated in 2010-14 were closing out, and those that originated in 2016-18 were hitting their 5 year mark.
This meant a lot of dry-powder didn't get deployed until 2023-24.
> stands to reason that we ran out of hacker topics...
They are still being posted at the same rate based on my filtering. The difference is a massive deluge in non-"traditional HN" related content being posted, and the younger generation of techies and founders (those below 35) not using HN.
2022 is when tech funding dried up, so it stands to reason that we ran out of hacker topics. The odd person still doing something cool in their basement for fun does not supply a sufficient stream of curiosities to keep the feed full. That required the unique time (ZIRP, etc.) when people were paid handsomely to explore cool things day in, day out.
HN was a product of its time.
That's a good point. Fwiw, I use throwaways because I don't want certain types of users to know anything about me. I wouldn't have felt this way, say, 5 years back.
What tools do you use for filtering if I may ask?
I built my own system using both sentiment polarity analysis, hard-coded logic, and some semi-active tuning, but I'd rather not divulge specifics. IMO anyone can spin up their own similar system.
What is this "trend" and "similar analysis" you mention? Not clear from your comment.
Appreciate some more details.
I haven’t noticed a huge change since 2022, except perhaps that politics are discussed quite a bit less
Politics is discussed significantly more on HN after 2022 than before. I'll wait on that HNer to finish their analysis and post it on here, but they've also noticed the same trend.
The "Dead Internet Theory" is too sad and too easy. I'd propose the "Dead Society Theory", the history of the Internet from the late 2000s to the late 2010s left people socially scare, paranoid, angry and hopeless about the possibility of communicating online.
Which is to say the Internet can be "dead" without being filled with undetectable or detectable fake posts, not that fake posts help things.