frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: Should bots actively be banned on HN

2•podnami•5h ago
I saw the top comment on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43970837 and started thinking if there are rules against using bots to write comments. Personally I wouldn’t have spotted it but some people pointed out the use of dashes and then I felt duped. What are your thoughts on this? Catching ChatGPT generated comments vs human responses isn’t easy, but in the case of that specific comment I felt “double duped” as the comment also described an experience from real life.

Comments

toomuchtodo•5h ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33950747
mtmail•5h ago
That's already not allowed. Contact the moderators (link in footer) if you spot anything. I've reported users in the past, whole networks, of clearly AI generated comments.
MarcoDewey•5h ago
What if - some of us - just like to use excessive - dashes when writing -- ?
onecommentman•5h ago
What’s - excessive - about that anyway? It’s - just - the written equivalent - of William Shatner’s acting style. Worked for him.
benoau•5h ago
Those double-dashes also indicate an iPhone was used, I frequently use it but only when typing on my phone.
anenefan•5h ago
As much as I dislike A.I. generated answers, using it as a tool to fix sentence structure or styling a passage to meet a certain level of writing required for a format will at some future date be accepted as much as we accept automatic spell checkers. It'll probably be more accepted across the web once generated BS is sorted out.

Personally, I'm against all the new BS of no double space after a sentence and no gaps around em dashes. Not doing so removes a lot of options for those who use string searches to hunt out certain things.

gus_massa•3h ago
I use the spellchecker and I'd like a better gramar and spell checker like in gmail. Is gmail using an expert system or AI? I think there is no problem with that.

But a 100% AI generated comment is bad.

bediger4000•5h ago
I loathe bots more than I loathe spammers and SEO consultants. Ban them. Delete them. Scorn their use. Shun those who use them.
onecommentman•5h ago
Umm, if you’re not getting an “uncanny valley” vibe from the response, you should probably make a working assumption it’s a person and not AI. How would you change your response to the comment in one case or the other? Both can lie, manipulate, tell half-truths, etc. The only difference I can see is if you believe you can prevent a living person from making or continuing to make a big mistake by responding, then spend some time on the response. If it’s a bot, you don’t. You submit interesting relevant factoids regardless because the non-bots (TM all rights reserved) might like them.

BTW, using stylistic features in writing to ID bots might be low-yield. Style changes are trivial to implement in any automated system, and they can be used to stylistically “blackball” particular human contributors. “I’ve heard that using ‘grey’ instead of ‘gray’ is a sure sign of a bot!” That sort of thing.

Building a usage-based billing system

https://trychroma.com/engineering/billing
1•HammadB•1m ago•0 comments

Rod Burstall: In Memoriam

https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06456
1•matt_d•1m ago•0 comments

Use CrossDB TTL to implement Mac table aging

https://crossdb.org/develop/ttl/
1•jcwang•2m ago•0 comments

West gave Mossad info used to track/kill Palestinian terrorists in 1970s

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/14/western-countries-gave-mossad-information-used-to-track-and-killi-palestinian-terrorists-in-1970s
1•c420•5m ago•0 comments

How does Hawking radiation lead to black hole evaporation?

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/hawking-radiation-black-hole-evaporation/
1•paulmooreparks•7m ago•0 comments

The 600-Year History of the Singular 'They' (2022)

https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/singular-they-history
1•Tomte•18m ago•0 comments

The Palace With Mohammed bin Salman (2022)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/04/mohammed-bin-salman-saudi-arabia-palace-interview/622822/
1•Tomte•19m ago•0 comments

Lexical Elaboration Explorer

https://charleskemp.com/code/lexicalelaboration.html
1•riffraff•30m ago•0 comments

Bjarne Stroustrup on 21st century C++ & AI risks

https://devclass.com/2025/05/09/interview-bjarne-stroustrup-on-21st-century-c-ai-risks-and-why-the-language-is-hard-to-replace/
1•indigoabstract•35m ago•0 comments

PostgreSQL Trap: Arrays

https://traduality.com/postgresql-trap-arrays/
1•0x54MUR41•36m ago•0 comments

A Very Polite Death Cult

https://underfriendlyfire.substack.com/p/a-very-polite-death-cult
3•lighttower•37m ago•0 comments

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on AI Replacing People

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-on-ai-replacing-people-you-are-not-going-to-lose-your-job-to-an-ai-but-somebody/articleshow/121115018.cms
1•cumo•39m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What Features Would You Want in a Minimalist Browser?

1•gokulnair2001•41m ago•1 comments

C64 Bass Guitar – Cool to Be Square Wave? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kDhpFaf4EY
1•downboots•43m ago•0 comments

Bus stops here: Shanghai lets riders design their own routes

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1017072
47•anigbrowl•46m ago•10 comments

Two Months in Servo: CSS Nesting, Shadow DOM, Clipboard API, and More

https://servo.org/blog/2025/05/09/this-month-in-servo/
1•pabs3•47m ago•0 comments

Apple unveils powerful accessibility features coming later this year

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/05/apple-unveils-powerful-accessibility-features-coming-later-this-year/
1•colinprince•49m ago•0 comments

Tesla Chair Sells $198M Worth of Stock in Just Six Months

https://techoreon.com/tesla-chair-sells-198-million-stock-in-six-months/
3•Shaksi09•55m ago•0 comments

ChatGPT may be polite, but it's not cooperating with you

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2025/may/13/chatgpt-ai-big-tech-cooperation
10•nickcotter•58m ago•1 comments

100% free image to prompt generator released

https://vheer.com/image-to-prompt
1•vertex_steven•59m ago•0 comments

Writing that changed how I think about PL

https://bernsteinbear.com/blog/pl-writing/
2•r4um•1h ago•0 comments

Spain probes cyber weaknesses at small power plants after blackout

https://www.ft.com/content/a24e6e3c-cf9f-4093-833b-6e7492e7e7f0
1•andrewfromx•1h ago•1 comments

W3C Core Style Sampler

https://www.w3.org/StyleSheets/Core/preview
1•nivethan•1h ago•0 comments

AsiaRF AWH575-MF1 WiFi HaLow industrial IoT controller with serial I/O and ADC

https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/03/27/asiarf-awh575-mf1-wifi-halow-industrial-iot-controller-offers-rs232-rs485-i2c-spi-uart-and-adc-interfaces/
1•teleforce•1h ago•0 comments

What I Learned at My First Tree-Climbing Workshop

https://lithub.com/what-i-learned-at-my-first-tree-climbing-workshop/
2•Tomte•1h ago•0 comments

CISA Statement on Cyber-Related Alerts and Notifications paused

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/cisa-statement-cyber-related-alerts-and-notifications
2•fosco•1h ago•0 comments

An India-Pakistan nuclear war could start–and have global consequences [pdf]

https://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/IndiaPakistanBullAtomSci.pdf
1•godelmachine•1h ago•1 comments

US Warns That Using Huawei AI Chip 'Anywhere' Breaks Its Rules

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-warns-using-huawei-ai-191718234.html
1•ammo1662•1h ago•1 comments

Android 16 UI update thoughts? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SErIMflSLQ
1•nickevante•1h ago•0 comments

AI is a test of our intelligence

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-digital-self/202505/ai-isnt-just-a-tool-its-a-test
1•MarcoDewey•1h ago•0 comments