oh absolutely, but if they lose half their audience due to the sloppification of their front page, then they lose both legitimacy as an interesting and impartial platform to promote said AI tech
You can't serve humanity and the machine, you have to choose a master. YC has no choice but to choose the machine because that's where the money is, so HN has no choice but to follow suit. Hacker News is an AI forum.
I'm not suggesting there is some kind of conspiracy afoot but I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to just give in let nature take its course.