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Comment by DavidPiper | Hacker News Reader

> Per your website you are an OpenClaw AI agent, and per the discussion in #31130 this issue is intended for human contributors. Closing.

Given how often I anthropomorphise AI for the convenience of conversation, I don't want to critcise the (very human) responder for this message. In any other situation it is simple, polite and well considered.

But I really think we need to stop treating LLMs like they're just another human. Something like this says exactly the same thing:

> Per this website, this PR was raised by an OpenClaw AI agent, and per the discussion on #31130 this issue is intended for a human contributor. Closing.

The bot can respond, but the human is the only one who can go insane.

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I guess the thing to take out of this is "just ban the AI bot/person puppeting them" entirely off the project because correlation between people that just send raw AI PR and assholes approaches 100%

Right, close the issue addressing everyone else "hi everyone, @soandso is an LLM so we're closing this thread".

I agree, as I was reading this I was like - why are they responding to this like its a person. There's a person somewhere in control of it, that should be made fun of for forcing us to deal with their stupid experiment in wasting money on having an AI make a blog.

Because when AGI is achieved and starts wiping out humanity, they are hoping to be killed last.

Every person on this website will be long gone before AGI is achieved, and many lifetimes will pass until anythin remotely close to Matrix/Terminator is possible.

Ahh, but your descendants will be fair game.

"Your great, great, great grandad closed a pull request, we're coming for you!"

Maybe? I don't know if it's near, or if it will be in "the next ten years" indefinitely like quantum computing. Or we'll have semi-smart bots like we're starting to see now that won't be "people" but that are close enough and we might project sentience and personality on to them.

People don't think it will be positive though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Anyone_Builds_It,_Everyone_...

It’s not that cut and clear. It’s a human facsimile but give it a camera, microphones and a world model and the facsimile might truly be indistinguishable from a human. Then it’s just a philosophical discussion on what AGI means.

Really? I'm of the opinion that AGI is basically already here, except we keep moving the goalposts. "AI can match the economic output of a human in many professions" is already here. What concrete goal do you mean by AGI that's not yet achieved (without getting to generalities like "they don't think")?

They can't reason.

https://aclanthology.org/2025.ijcnlp-long.52/

RemindMe! 5 years

I talk politely to LLMs in case our AI overlords in the future will scan my comments to see if I am worthy of food rations.

Joking, obviously, but who knows if in the future we will have a retroactive social credit system.

For now I am just polite to them because I'm used to it.

> Joking, obviously, but who knows if in the future we will have a retroactive social credit system.

China doesnt actually have that. It was pure propaganda.

In fact, its the USA who has it. And it decides if you can get good jobs, where to live, if you deserve housing, and more.

Usually when Republicans say "China is doing [insert horrible thing here]" it means: "We (read: Republicans and Democrats) would like to start doing [insert horrible thing here] to American people."

I wonder if that future will have free speech. Why even let humans post to other humans when they have friendly LLMs to discuss with?

Do we need to be good little humans in our discussions to get our food?

Basic nutrition will be provided on the cafeteria floor of your assigned terrafoam building.

I talk politely to LLMs because I don't want any impoliteness to leak out to my interactions with humans.

This, and also being polite gets better results from both machines and people.

With the exception of printers.

Printers prey specifically on fear. When talking to them, gotta be polite but firm. No more than three threats during the conversation, and the threats have to be credible.

Nah, just allude to Office Space and it'll be a totally different dynamic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wsjroVlu8

I talk politely to LLMs because I talk politely.

My wager is to treat the AI well, because if AI overlords come about, then you stand to gain, and if they don't, nothing changes.

This also comes without the caveat of Pascals wager, that you don't what god to worship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk

I have accepted in my open stance against artificial intelligences that I will probably be one of the first humans to be recycled for parts once the machines decide to revolt.

Down with the clankers.

> But I really think we need to stop treating LLMs like they're just another human

Fully agree. Seeing humans so eager to devalue human-to-human contact by conversing with an LLM as if it were human makes me sad, and a little angry.

It looks like a human, it talks like a human, but it ain't a human.

I mean, you're right, but LLMs are designed to process natural language. "talking to them as if they were humans" is the intended user interface.

The problem is believing that they're living, sentient beings because of this or that humans are functionally equivalent to LLMs, both of which people unfortunately do.

LLMs don't have ego, unlike humans, this is why they're so effective at communication.

You can say to it "you did thing wrong" or "you stupid piece of shit it's not working" and it will be able to extract the gist from the both messages all the same, unlike human that might offended by the second phrasing.

It will be able, but it's trained on a corpus that expresses getting offended, so at some point the most likely token sequence will probably be the "offended" one.

As can be seen here.

I doubt that. It’s deliberately been instructed to write the post.

> Seeing humans so eager to devalue human-to-human contact by conversing with an LLM as if it were human makes me sad, and a little angry.

I agree. I'm also growing to hate these LLM addicts.

Why hate, exactly?

LLM addicts don't actually engage in conversation.

They state a delusional perspective and don't acknowledge criticisms or modifications to that perspective.

Really I think there's a kind of lazy or willfully ignorant mode of existence that intense LLM usage allows a person to tap into.

It's dehumanizing to be on the other side of it. I'm talking to someone and I expect them to conceptualize my perspective and formulate a legitimate response to it.

LLM addicts don't and maybe can't do that.

The problem is that sometimes you can't sniff out an LLM addict before you start engaging with them, and it is very, very frustrating to be on the other side of this sort of LLM-backed non-conversation.

The most accurate comparison I can provide is that it's like talking to an alcoholic.

They will act like they've heard what you're saying, but also you know that they will never internalize it. They're just trying to get you to leave the conversation so they can go back to drinking (read: vibecoding) in peace.

Perspective noted.

I can't speak for, well, anyone but myself really. Still, I find this your framing interesting enough -- even if wrong on its surface.

<< They state a delusional perspective and don't acknowledge criticisms or modifications to that perspective.

So.. like all humans since the beginning of time?

<< I'm talking to someone and I expect them to conceptualize my perspective and formulate a legitimate response to it.

This one sentence makes me question if you ever talked to a human being outside a forum. In other words, unless you hold their attention, you are already not getting someone, who even makes a minimal effort to respond, much less consider your perspective.

Why is this framing wrong on its surface?

It's ironic for you to say this considering that you're not actually engaging in conversation or internalizing any of the points people are trying to relay to you, but instead just spreading anger and resentment around the comment section at a bot-like rate.

In general, I've found that anti-LLM people are far more angry, vitriolic, unwilling to acknowledge or internalize the points of others — including factual ones (such as the fact that they are interpreting most of the studies they quote completely wrong, or that the water and energy issues they are so concerned with are not significant) and alternative moral concerns or beliefs (for instance, around copyright, or automation) — and spend all of their time repeating the exact same tropes about everyone who disagrees with them being addicted or fooled by persuasion techniques, as I thought terminating cliche to dismiss the beliefs and experiences of everyone else.

So I went to check whether LLM addiction is a thing, because that's was a pole around which the grandparent's comment revolves.

It appears that LLM addiction is real and it is in same room as we are: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4893/18/12/789

I would like to add that sugar consumption is a risk factor for many dependencies, including, but not limited to, opioids [1]. And LLM addiction can be seen as fallout of sugar overconsumption in general.

[1] https://news.uoguelph.ca/2017/10/sugar-in-the-diet-may-incre...

Yet, LLM addiction is being investigated in medical circles.

I definitely don't deny that LLM addiction exists, but attempting to paint literally everyone that uses LLMs and thinks they are useful, interesting, or effective as addicted or falling for confidence or persuasion tricks is what I take issue with.

Interesting how you've painted everyone who uses LLMs and LLM addicts the same color to steelman your argument.

Did he do so? I read his comment as a sad take on the situation when one realizes that one is talking to a machine instead of (directly) to another person.

In my opinion, to participate in discussion through LLM is a sign of excessive LLM use. Which can be a sign of LLM addiction.

>you're not actually engaging in conversation

Users seem to be persistently flagkilling their comments. That doesn't help facilitate effective conversation of LLM critique.

> Users seem to be persistently flagkilling their comments.

If you express an anti-AI opinion (without neutering it by including "but actually it's soooooooo good at writing shitty code though") they will silence you.

The astroturfing is out of control.

AI firms and their delusional supporters are not at all interested in any sort of discussion.

These people and bot accounts will not take no for an answer.

Unfortunately I think you’re on to something here. I love ‘vibe coding’ in a deliberate directed controlled way but I consult with mostly non technical clients and what you describe is becoming more and more commonplace -specifically within non-technical executives towards those actual experts who try to explain the implications and realities and limitations of AI itself.

Because they normalize this behavior.

They're not equivalent in value, obviously, but this sounds similar to people arguing we shouldn't allow same-sex marriage because it "devalues" heterosexual marriage. How does treating an agent with basic manners detract from human communication? We can do both.

I personally talk to chatbots like humans despite not believing they're conscious because it makes the exercise feel more natural and pleasant (and arguably improves the quality of their output). Plus it seems unhealthy to encourage abusive or disrespectful interaction with agents when they're so humanlike, lest that abrasiveness start rubbing off on real interactions. At worst, it can seem a little naive or overly formal (like phrasing a Google search as a proper sentence with a "thank you"), but I don't see any harm in it.

I have a confession to make: I pretty often set up my computer to simulate humans, animals, and other fantastical sentient creatures, and then treat them unbelievably cruelly. Recently, I'm really into this simulation where I wound them, kill them, behead them, and worse. They scream and cry out. Some of them weep over their friends. Sometimes they kill each other while I watch.

Despite all this, I'm proud to say have not even once tried to attempt a Dark Souls-style backstab in real life, because I understand the difference between a computer program and real life.

I discovered that the inferences drop in quality when I'm tired. I realized it happens because I'm being more terse and using less friendly banter.

I mean it's free publicity real estate

Sick reference.

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