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

Yes

This is what DeepSeek said:

> 1. Existing guidelines already handle low-value content. If an AI reply is shallow or off-topic, it gets downvoted or flagged. > > 2. Transparency is good. Explicitly citing an AI is better than users passing off its output as their own, which a ban might encourage. > > 3. The community can self-regulate. We don't need a new rule for every type of low-effort content. > > The issue is low effort, not the tool used. Let downvotes handle it.

But what [if the llms generate] constructive and helpful comments? https://xkcd.com/810/

For obvious(?) reasons I won't point to some recent comments that I suspect, but they were kind and gentle in the way that Opus 4.5 can be at times; encouraging humans to be good with each other.

I think the rules should be similar to bot rules I saw on wikipedia. It ought to be ok to USE an AI in the process of making a comment, but the comment needs to be 'owned' by the human/the account posting it.

Eg. if it's a helpful comment, it should be upvoted. If it's not helpful, downvoted; and with a little luck people will be encouraged/discouraged from using AI in inappropriate ways.

"I asked gemini, and gemini said..." is probably the wrong format, if it's otherwise (un)useful, just vote it accordingly?

nah

yes

That's what the upvote/downvote system is for.

the system of long-lived nicks on YNews is intended to build a mild and flexible reputation system. This is valuable for complex topics, and to notice zealots, among other things. The feeling while reading that it is a community of peers is important.

AI-LLM replies break all of these things. AI-LLM replies must be declared as such, for certain IMHO. It seems desirable to have off-page links for (inevitable) lengthy reply content.

This is an existential change for online communications. Many smart people here have predicted it and acted on it already. It is certainly trending hard for the forseeable future.

Yes. If I wanted an LLM’s opinion, I would have asked it myself.

No, this is not a good rule.

What AI regurgitates about about a topic is often more interesting and fact/data-based than the emotionally-driven human pessimists spewing constant cynicism on HN, so in fact I much prefer having more rational AI responses added in as context within a conversation.

It should be allowed and downvoted

Umm, just to be clear;

HN is not actually a democracy. The rules are not voted on. They are set by the people who own and run HN.

Please tell me what you think those people think of this question.

You can add the guideline, but then people would skip the "I asked" part and post the answer straight away. Apart from the obvious LLMesque structure of most of those bot answers, how could you tell if one has crafted the answer so much that it looks like a genuine human answer?

Obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/810/

Lots of old man yelling at clouds energy in here.

This is new territory, you don't ban it, you adapt with it.

While I'd certainly prefer raw human authorship on a forum like this, I can't help but think this is the wrong question. The labeling up front appears to be merely a disclosure style. That is, commenters say that as a way of notifying the reader that they used an LLM to arrive at the answer (at least here on HN) rather than citing the LLM as an authority.

"Banning" the comment syntax would merely ban the form of notification. People are going to look stuff up with an LLM. It's 2025; that's what we do instead of search these days. Just like we used to comment "Well Google says..." or "According to Alta Vista..."

Proscribing quoting an LLM is a losing proposition. Commenters will just omit disclosure.

I'd lean toward officially ignoring it, or alternatively ask that disclosure take on less conversational form. For example, use quote syntax and cite the LLM. e.g.:

> Blah blah slop slop slop

-- ChatGippity

Fighting the zeitgeist never works out. The world's gonna move on whether you move on with it or not.

I for one would love to have summary executions for anyone who says that Hello-Fellow-Kids cringe pushed on us by middle-aged squares: "vibe"

i asked chatgpt and it said no its not a good idea to ban

I already assume everything, and I mean everything, that I read in any comment section, whether here or sewers like Reddit, X, or one of the many Twitter-but-Communist clones, is either:

1. Paid marketing (tech stacks, political hackery, Rust evangelism) 2. Some sociopath talking his own book 3. Someone who spouts off about things he doesn’t know about (see: this post’s author)

The internet of real people died decades ago and we can only wander in the polished megalithic ruins of that enlightened age.

Yes, please. LLMs are poisoning all online conversions everywhere. It's an epidemic global plague.

Depends on the context.

I find myself downvoting (flagging) them when I see them as submissions, and I can't think of any examples where they were good submission content; but for comments? There's enough discussion where the AI is the subject itself and therefore it's genuinely relevant what the AI says.

Then there's stuff like this, which I'd not seen myself before seeing your question, but I'd say asking people here if an AI-generated TLDR of 74 (75?) page PDF is correct, is a perfectly valid and sensible use: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46164360

Yes please. I don't care if somebody did their own research via one, but it's just so low effort.

[dead]

you got a downvote button

Posting this kind of slop should be a banning offense. Also: https://hn-ai.org/

Honestly I judge people pretty harshly. I ask people a question in honest good faith. If they’re trying to help me out and genuinely care and use AI fine.

But most of the time it’s like they were bothered that I asked and copy paste what an AI said.

Pretty easy. Just add their name to my “GFY” list and move on in my life.

Forbidden? They should be mandatory.

I don't think they should be banned, I think they should be encouraged: I'm always appreciative when people who can't think for themselves openly identify themselves so that it costs me less effort to spot them.

These comments are in the top 10% of usefulness of all comments in those threads. Clear, legible information that is easy to read and relevant. Keep!