Yeah, the up/down voting mechanism seems to be doing it's job for me too. Don't think I've noticed a degradation in, say, the top third of comments. That's where I try to live anyway.
/newest is chock full of submissions that were written by AI, though. That's another, broader problem.
A while ago I replied to the topmost reply to a comment to rebuke some factual errors. I didn't notice anything wrong with the comment itself when I replied. But after I posted, someone replied to my post and accused the post I replied to of being AI written.
At first I felt similarly as you. I thought people were just paranoid. And the someone pointed out that if I paste the top level post (the post I replied to replied to) into chatGPT and it will generate a very similar reply.
The post I replied to was flagged dead so you need to turn showdead on in your profile to read it. Would you be able to tell if it is AI if someone replied like this to you? I surely couldn't.
Me too. I am exhausted by all the human slop constantly complaining about comments or posts being ai slop. I think I have had better conversations with bots the last few months lol.
This is everywhere not just HN: Reddit LinkedIn and twitter too. You are guaranteed to get 2 types of comments on anything you post:
1. Comments accusing you of AI slop (I call them human slop)
2. Comments by AI bots (surprisingly some are helpful and useful) at the end your bot will be a reflection of you.
Asshole humans will train asshole bots.
ps: I don’t even know how any of these sites can fight these bots. The LLMs are amazing and with openclaw and similar it’s impossible to detect bots vs humans.
To add to the collection of anecdata, your experience is similar to mine. I have been more exhausted recently by the complaints of AI submissions and pseudo analysis of AI comments than exhausted by the supposed AI generated comments themselves.
I've been using HN since 2008 when I created my first account[1] and I use HN differently than most people. I have a group of bookmarked searches that I visit almost daily that relate to technologies that interest me, such as Emacs.
In the past year, the searches I perform that relate to web development show a horrifying increase in the amount of Show HN posts that are posted by new accounts, include AI generated descriptions and point to AI generated projects on GitHub.
In 2024, there were 17,661 Show HN posts.[2] In the past year, there have been over 448,000 Show HN posts![3] And of course, most of these posts are AI generated.
Also, if you check the new accounts posting all this AI slop, you'll see that some of them also post AI generated comments in other threads, which is the main problem.
But for me, what is even more annoying is the enormous increase in new accounts created by nontechnical vibecoders who now think of themselves as technologists and who post worthless, ignorant comments that actually get upvoted, presumably by similar folks who have unfortunately been creating accounts at HN in the past 10 years or so.
As a result, 2026 is the first year in which I visit HN about once a week instead of about once a day.
The fact that this discussion was flagged might be the final nail in the coffin for me. The huge increase in AI generated comments and posts at HN is a topic that has been discussed on other forums for months now. Complaints include "Orange Reddit", "Orange LinkedIn", etc. But when the topic comes up at HN, it gets flagged. Fuck this.
I would like to encourage you to step back a little and try to get a broader view on this issue.
I don't want to discuss whether there is more LLM-generated content or not. There clearly is, and there is no feasible way to get rid of it , because there is simply no reliable way to distinguish what was made by humans and what wasn't. Regardless of what is claimed, it is just not possible, if only because hybrid forms exist as well. This text was written by me, but reviewed and stylistically adjusted by an LLM.
It is therefore completely pointless to get upset about LLM content and demand anything from the moderators.
All we are left with are our votes and the "reputation" of our user handles - and the awareness that we need to learn to consume content with a great deal of skepticism. We should have been doing this all along, but it seems to be something we struggle with.
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
And yes, this may mean that we stop using anonymous online platforms altogether, because nothing on them can be relied upon anymore. That is a shame, but it cannot be stopped — Pandora's LLM box has been open for at least five years.
I therefore consider any discussion about banning LLM content to be futile. We are witnessing another Eternal September here: it couldn't be stopped back then, and it won't be stopped today either.
Many people in this and other threads around this topic have already stated what they are going to do, which is the inevitable conclusion: move to private chats/discords. I’m sure some amount will remain on IRC or maybe IRC will get a second wind (unlikely). Websites like HN will have to make a choice going forward because now they’re on a trajectory to complete enshittification. Your handle and karma doesn’t matter if the site is dominated by bots. It’s basically a hollow shell of what it used to be and there’s no value to it at a certain point. You’ll be replying to bots more than humans.
There’s plenty left to discuss for humans. But LLMs don’t discuss.
I've only seen a shift on the kind of submissions that get pushed to the front page compared to the past but I guess there's a change in what people consider important in the community
