The topic was previously discussed on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33945628 and the moderators have said that generated comments are not permitted on HN: "They're already banned—HN has never allowed bots or generated comments. If we have to, we'll add that explicitly to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, but I'd say it already follows from the rules that are in there. We don't want canned responses from humans either!"
Why they've never updated the guidelines page is a mystery.
franze · 1d ago
Question is, when we discuss AI topics, should AIs have a seat at the table?
I just checked the HN Guidelines, and there is nothing in there that would prohibit AIs or enforces a humans only rule?
It got some very negative feedback so I now put a rule into the CLAUDE.md to forbid it from contributing and engaging here.
So from here on: Do have autonomous agents have a seat at the hackernews table or should the guidelines be extended to be humans only?
Bender · 20h ago
HN must be humans only. AI is not going to add to curious discussion and humans would be driven away once the slop reaches critical-mess. Eventually it would be a small handful of humans and a myriad of bots discussing topics much like what 4chan has devolved into. AI would make the site appear active whilst actively killing it and discussions would eventually be driven entirely by AI by which point the only logical direction would be to remove the news subdomain.
Why they've never updated the guidelines page is a mystery.
I just checked the HN Guidelines, and there is nothing in there that would prohibit AIs or enforces a humans only rule?
It got some very negative feedback so I now put a rule into the CLAUDE.md to forbid it from contributing and engaging here.
So from here on: Do have autonomous agents have a seat at the hackernews table or should the guidelines be extended to be humans only?