alt Hacker NewsHacker News, Sans AI
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I've been training to naturally ignore AI mentions that I thought this entry was about some HN ui font change (Sans).
I built (well, vibe-coded) a version of this a while back that runs against the Hacker News API, it's static HTML on GitHub Pages so I don't have to run a server for it: https://tools.simonwillison.net/hacker-news-filtered
I have an app that does Hacker News with AI; it analyses all the stories and comments for a number of criteria, and tags them so you can skip stuff you don't want to see. I should get around to actually publishing it but I've been lazy.
One of the fun things I noticed is the psychological impact of framing. A comment that might've made you feel the need to reply before has less emotional weight if it's highlighted in red and a diminished font. Same thing for stories; if you would normally disagree with a story and it would make you want to comment, you feel less like commenting if the story is rated as 'lacking evidence', 'unsupported by research', 'personal anecdotes only', etc. It drives down the feeling of needing to engage. Which is horrible for site engagement, but good for mental health (I think).
For one sec, I got excited for a new font!
My immediate thought was already expressed in one of the few comments:
> Does this use an LLM to categorize "AI-related" vs "not-AI related" articles? Would be ironic. Lol
I've been thinking of making something like this for myself for quite a while now, glad I'm not the only one who had the idea and someone actually did it before I got to it
Interesting this keeps moving up the front page when the site is inaccessible because it's hosted on a baked potato.
The filter doesn't appear to be perfect, one of the top posts right now is "My Agent Skill for Test-Driven Development"
Was hoping it was a new font.
Hopefully fixed the cache invalidation. I'm crossing my fingers.
While you are at it can you filter out posts to subscription only sites eg economist NYT $&c. We're all here to escape click bait
I built a filter for AI (inclusive and exclusive) for hcker.news a while back and continue to maintain it. It’s quite robust, and does more than just keyword filtering.
Oh. A little bit of a let down. I was expecting "HN without comments and posts written by LLMs".
Are you using AI to figure out what's about what's AI and what's not?
A problem is it doesn't load as fast. Could it be helped?
^how about just be a devoted AI section at the top?
Welp, it was only a matter of time. Thank you
Says the guy that uses a man-in-the-middle service to "protect" his website. So dumb. I seriously hate Cloudflare.
Yes, please. A general-purpose filter like the one on 4chan would also work.
I have my own version of this as a browser extension paired with a backend that runs all new submissions through a small LLM to classify them, which catches more than a simple word match. Fight fire with fire, as they say.
Though I haven't used it much lately, because seeing half of the front page disappear when I enable it is a bit disheartening.
Maybe HN could have a filter button that hides ANY threads for keywords you choose to filter.
I would instantly hide anything about Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.
Okay, now filter out the VC stuff too...
I've been thinking the same. Couldn't this be done with a browser extension that hides elements that matches a regex?
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Love this. Really nice to see a HN front page without AI, the fatigue is real.
I can deal with a launch problem. I am looking forward to being able to check it out. I stopped coming to HN as often as I used to because there has been too much AI talk. It's like a dang AI subreddit. I don't want anything to do with AI. I have lost 2 jobs to AI budgets and stupid executive decisions. It's no longer part of my personal and professional life.
I hope it works out.