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Ask HN: Should "I asked $AI, and it said" replies be forbidden in HN guidelines?

881 points embedding-shape | 12 comments | 09 Dec 25 16:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom

As various LLMs become more and more popular, so does comments with "I asked Gemini, and Gemini said ....".

While the guidelines were written (and iterated on) during a different time, it seems like it might be time to have a discussion about if those sort of comments should be welcomed on HN or not.

Some examples:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46164360

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46200460

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080064

Personally, I'm on HN for the human conversation, and large LLM-generated texts just get in the way of reading real text from real humans (assumed, at least).

What do you think? Should responses that basically boil down to "I asked $LLM about $X, and here is what $LLM said:" be allowed on HN, and the guidelines updated to state that people shouldn't critique it (similar to other guidelines currently), or should a new guideline be added to ask people from refrain from copy-pasting large LLM responses into the comments, or something else completely?

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tptacek ◴[09 Dec 25 17:50 UTC] No.46208058[source]▶
They already are against the rules here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

(This is a broader restriction than the one you're looking for).

It's important to understand that not all of the rules of HN are on the Guidelines page. We're a common law system; think of the Guidelines as something akin to a constitution. Dan and Tom's moderation comments form the "judicial precedent" of the site; you'll find things in there like "no Internet psychiatric diagnosis" and "not owing $publicfigure anything but owing this community more" and "no nationalist flamewar" and "no hijacking other people's Show HN threads to promote your own thing". None of those are on the Guidelines page either, but they're definitely in the guidelines here.

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1. Rendello ◴[09 Dec 25 18:07 UTC] No.46208286[source]▶
This is the correct answer. If you're curious about what other sorts of things are disallowed by common law, look at dang and tomhow's comments that say "please don't":

dang: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

tomhow: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

replies(3): >>46208455 #>>46211667 #>>46211898 #
2. Akronymus ◴[09 Dec 25 18:20 UTC] No.46208455[source]▶
> This is the correct answer.

Where does that saying come from? I keep seeing it in a lot of different contexts but it somehow feels off to me in a way I can't really explain.

replies(3): >>46209137 #>>46209181 #>>46211787 #
3. Rendello ◴[09 Dec 25 19:07 UTC] No.46209137[source]▶
It's the first time I've ever commented that, and I was trying to figure out a way to omit it. I don't like that sort of phrase either, I especially hate comments that just go "This.", but they're rare on HN so I'm in good company.

Ultimately, I put it because:

- It was the most directly informative comment on the thread;

- It had been downvoted (greyed out) to the very bottom of the thread; and

- I wanted to express my support before making a fairly orthogonal comment without whiplashing everyone.

The whiplashing concern is the problem I run into most generally. It can be hard to reply to someone with a somewhat related idea without making it seem like you're contradicting them, particularly if they're being dogpiled on with downvotes or comments. I'd love to hear other ways to go about this, I'm always trying to improve my communication.

4. sfink ◴[09 Dec 25 19:10 UTC] No.46209181[source]▶
It's not "off" unless you're simply reading it literally. If you do that, then it's a verbose way of saying "I agree". But the connotations are something like "I agree, strongly, and in particular am implying (possibly just for effect) that there are objectively right and wrong answers to this question and the other answers are wrong." The main difference is the statement that there is an objective answer to what people may be treating as a subjective question.

If it helps, you can think of it as saying more about possible disagreeing opinions than about the specific opinion expressed. "This answer is right, and the people who disagree are 'objectively' wrong."

It took me some time to catch on to this. It can certainly be jarring or obnoxious, though sometimes it can be helpful to say "yo people, you're treating this like a subjective opinion, but there are objective reasons to conclude X."

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5. Rendello ◴[09 Dec 25 19:15 UTC] No.46209230{3}[source]▶
I (the comment writer), agree that it's jarring and a bit obnoxious. There were three factors that led me to write it anyway, which I've mentioned here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46209137

Edit: Rereading the comments, I agree (heheh) with you analysis. I hadn't considered saying "I agree", because I didn't feel I was expressing an opinion, but a fact, like 1+1=2. The comment stated that the mods in fact disallow those comments and provided proof, so I didn't consider it an opinion.

replies(1): >>46209674 #
6. Akronymus ◴[09 Dec 25 19:21 UTC] No.46209309{3}[source]▶
Yeah, that seems like a fair way to put my feelings into words.
7. sfink ◴[09 Dec 25 19:48 UTC] No.46209674{4}[source]▶
Heh, and rereading my comment, it comes across as more against the usage than I actually feel. It's not my personal style, and sometimes I find it annoying, but 80% of the time I think it's totally fine and expresses a nuance that would take a lot more words otherwise. Your usage here, for example, seems totally appropriate to me.
replies(1): >>46209927 #
8. Rendello ◴[09 Dec 25 20:06 UTC] No.46209927{5}[source]▶
The reason why I was reticent to use it was not because I was uncomfortable asserting an absolute (the link showed clearly that mods didn't allow these comments, I don't see any controversy there), but more so that on this type of forum, the act of voting itself is the primary method of agreement. Saying "I agree" or "this is true" or "THIS!" is generally redundant and noisy.

I really like this conversation by the way. I'm actively trying to become a better writer (by doing copywork of my favourite writers), and no other forum on Earth has this sort of conversation in such an interesting, nuanced way.

9. versavolt ◴[09 Dec 25 22:35 UTC] No.46211667[source]▶
That answer is incorrect. Common law can only be created by courts.
replies(2): >>46212244 #>>46213026 #
10. mjmas ◴[09 Dec 25 22:58 UTC] No.46211898[source]▶
Corrected second link: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
11. AnimalMuppet ◴[09 Dec 25 23:41 UTC] No.46212244[source]▶
Uh huh. And, as tptacek said, dang and tomhow are the courts here. So what they have consistently ruled is the common law here.
12. floxy ◴[10 Dec 25 01:34 UTC] No.46213026[source]▶
https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_060886.p...