I'm here to read what actual humans think. If I wanted to read what an LLM thinks, I could just ask it.

But here's where it gets tricky: Do I prefer low-effort, off-the-top-of-my-head reactions, as long as it is human? Or do I want an insightful, well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced?

Am I here to read authentic humans because I value authenticity for its own sake (like preferring Champagne instead of sparkling wine)? Or do I value authentic human output because I expect it to be of higher quality?

I confess that it is a little of both. But it wouldn't surprise me if someday LLM-enhanced output becomes sufficiently superior to average human output that the choice to stick with authentic human output will be more painful.

> Do I prefer low-effort, off-the-top-of-my-head reactions, as long as it is human? Or do I want an insightful, well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced?

This is an artificial dichotomy. HN’s guidelines specify thoughtful, curious discussion as a specific goal. One-off / pithy / sarcastic throwaway comments are generally unwelcome, however popular they are. Insightful responses can be three words, ten seconds to write and submit, and still be absolutely invaluable. Well-thought-out responses are also always appreciated, even if they tend to attract fewer upvotes than a generic rabble-rousing sentiment about DRM or GPL or Apple that’s been copy-pasted to the past hundred posts about that topic. But LLM-enhanced responses are not only unwelcome but now outright prohibited.

Better an HN with fewer words than an HN with more AI writing words. We’ve been drowned in Show HN by quantity as proof of why already.

> Do I prefer low-effort, off-the-top-of-my-head reactions, as long as it is human? Or do I want an insightful, well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced?

For me it's the first one every time. If only because LLM don't learn from responses to it (much less so when the response is to a paste of their output). It's just not communication. From that perspective, the quality of even the most brilliant LLM output is zero, because it's (whatever high value) multiplied by zero.

Even a real person saying something really horrible and too dense to learn from any response at least gives me a signal about what humans exist. An LLM doesn't tell me anything, and if wanted the reply of an LLM, I would simply feed my own posts into an LLM. A human doing that "for me" is very creepy and, to my sensibilities, boundary violating. Okay, that may be too strong a word, but it feels gross in a way I can't quite put my finger on, but reject wholeheartedly.

I like to read human comments because I'd like to know what my fellow humans think. I'd prefer not to read low-effort, throw away comments, but other than that I want to know what people think about different topics.

> Or do I want an insightful, well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced?

I'd argue that anything insightful or well-though-out doesn't use LLMs at all. We can quibble over whether discussions with an LLM lead to insightful responses, but that still isn't your own personal thought. Just type what's on your mind, it's not that hard and nitpicking over this is just looking for ways to open up unnecessary opportunities for abuse.

If the goal is to read what actual humans think, it's hard to see how an LLM filter can do anything but obscure and degrade the content.

LLMs, as we know them, express things using the patterns they've been developed to prefer. There's a flattening, genericizing effect built in.

If there are people who find an LLM filter to be an enhancement, they can run everything through their favorite LLM themselves.

What is the value of this "output"? If I want to know what LLMs think about something, I can go ask an LLM any question I want. For a comment on [a site like] HN, either the substantive content of the comment originated inside a human mind, or there is no substantive content that I couldn't reproduce by feeding the comment's context into an LLM. At the extreme, I don't have any interest in reading or participating in a conversation between a bunch of LLMs.

By this logic, you might consider vibe coding a browser plugin that takes any HN comment less than 50 words and auto-expands it into an “insightful, well thought-out response.”

> But it wouldn't surprise me if someday LLM-enhanced output becomes sufficiently superior to average human output that the choice to stick with authentic human output will be more painful.

If your definition of "superior" includes some amount of "provides a meaningful connection to another living being", then LLM output will rarely be superior even when it's factually and grammatically correct.

> Do I prefer low-effort, off-the-top-of-my-head reactions, as long as it is human? Or do I want an insightful, well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced?

Neither. I want insightful, well-thought-out, human comments.

It's a little sad that this might be too much to ask sometimes...

I prefer low effort human thought to low effort llm output.

> But here's where it gets tricky

Pretty sure this comment is AI

The point of a discussion site is to hear what other people think and get different perspectives. Just getting an LLM's insightful, well-thought-out response isn't really a big draw, if one is looking for that, there's a pretty obvious way to get it. I posted this the other day (ignore the title I realized later it's too clickbaity) but this is why IMO LLMs won't replace the workforce, people aren't looking for answers to things, they're looking for other people's takes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47299988

> If I wanted to read what an LLM thinks, I could just ask it.

and

> Or do I want an insightful, well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced?

What is the difference? What's the line between these two?

The prompt: "Analyze <opinion> and respond" is pretty clearly "I would just ask it." and, the prompt: "here's my comment, please ONLY the check the grammar and spelling" would probably be ok.

What about prompt:"I disagree with using LLMs for commenting at all for <reasons>. Please expound on this and provide references and examples". That would explode the word count for this site.

I agree there is a dichotomy. I personally think AIs are better debaters than humans, at the very least in their ability to make less logical mistakes and have wider knowledge. I would suggest everyone should run their thoughts through an AI to get a constructive critique, it would certainly reduce lot of time wasted.

And I find the decision to "ban" AI slightly ironic, when HN has a disdain (unlike its predecessor Slashdot) for funny or sarcastic comments, which require the reader to think more, rather than having a clear argument handed on a silver platter. I mean, it is what truly human communication is like - deliberately not always crystal clear.

I suspect that HN will eventually be replaced by an AI-moderated site, because it will have more quality content.

Humans have more variability and "edge". If a person is passionately arguing for some point of view (perhaps somewhat outside the usual), it signals to me that they probably thought about this and it is a distillation of a long thought process and real-life experience. One could say that the logical argument should stand alone, but reality doesn't work that way. There are many things you have to implicitly trust and believe when you read. Of course lying and bullshitting already existed before ("nobody knows you're a dog" etc etc). But LLMs will really eloquently defend X, not X, X*0.5 and anything inbetween. There is no information content in it, it doesn't refer to an actual human life experience and opinion that someone wants to stand behind. It just means that someone made the LLM output a thing.

Gonna put out a blanket assertion about my preferences, to get a read on whether these are shared or not:

As humans, we have directives (genetic, cultural, societal, etc.) to prioritize humanistic endeavors (and output) above all else.

History has shown that humans are overwhelmingly chauvinistic in regards to their relationship to other animals in the animal kingdom, even to the point of structuring our moral/ethical/legal systems to prioritize human wellbeing over that of other animals (however correct/ethical that may ultimately be, e.g., given recent findings in animal cognition, such as recent attempts to outlaw boiling lobsters alive as per culinary tradition).

But, it seems that some parties/actors are willing (i.e., benefiting) from subverting this long-standing convention (of prioritizing human interests) in the face of AI (even to the point of the now-farcical quote by Sam Altman that humans take far more nurturing than LLMs...)

So: should we be neglecting our historical and genetic directives, to instead prioritize AI over human interests? Or should we be unashamedly anthropic (pun intended), even at the cost of creating arbitrary barriers (i.e., the equivalent of guilds) intended to protect human interests over those of AI actors?

I strongly recommend the latter, particularly if the disruptions to human-centric conventions/culture/output are indeed as significant (and catastrophic) as they will likely be if unchecked.

> well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced?

There's no insight nor well-thought-out response once a person decides to "LLM-enhance" their response. The only insight that the person using the LLM is too limited to have a decent conversation with.

> But it wouldn't surprise me if someday LLM-enhanced output becomes sufficiently superior to average human output that the choice to stick with authentic human output will be more painful.

My ideal vision is that instead of outsourcing indefinitely, we learn from the enhanced versions and become better independent writers.

If you like reading LLM output, just talk directly to an LLM. Problem solved.

> Am I here to read authentic humans because I value authenticity for its own sake (like preferring Champagne instead of sparkling wine)?

Mate, Champagne is a sparkling wine. In French you can even at times hear people asking for "un vin mousseux de Champagne" meaning "a sparkling wine from Champagne" instead of the short form (just saying "un Champagne" or "du Champagne").

Now, granted, not all sparkling wine are Champagne.

The Wikipedia entry begins with: "Champagne is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France...".

I drank enough of it to be stating my case, of which I'm certain!

P.S: and btw, yup, authentic humans content only here, even if it's of "low quality". If I want LLM, I've got my LLMs.

I keep wishing for a public place to put a formatted version of my LLM threads. I have long conversations with LLMs that usually result in some kind of documentation, tutorial, or dataset. Many of them are relatively novel, but I haven't created a place for them yet.

And no, I wouldn't think an HN post is it either.. I'm just saying, there should be a good place to post the output of good questions asked iteratively.