Hacker News Reader

I also write my own copy. (You're absolutely right!) But this trend on HN of calling out everything as AI slop is a bit tiring.

View on HN

Reading so much of it on HN is presumably equally as tiring.

I think the problem is that half the time the callouts are incorrect (edgelords trying to be clever) or irrelevant (non-native speakers using AI to translate or clarify).

Sustained pushback helps define how the tool is used, and if it only takes a few years of complaints to permanently establish good social norms around it, I think we're better for it. At least, I much prefer this than a world where everyone is too polite to complain about slop until slop is all that is left..

I agree. However, it's gotten so bad that people are calling out AI slop on things they just don't care for — or mistake human writing for AI — which paradoxically becomes its own red flag to ignore the comment, even if there are valid points within.

I just used the em dash twice, and have been doing so for 35 years. This is now supposedly a dead give-away for slop.

Call it slop when it's slop. When it's not total garbage, give it a rest.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com