I think dang's intention here is to prohibit undisclosed comments posted by either bots or lazy humans, not topical, attributed comments that were generated by models and posted as part of a good-faith discussion by actual users.

Can't speak for dang, obviously, but that's the rule I'd make in his shoes.

dang has made it clear that all generated comments and articles are off topic. Hacker News is for human discussion, and AI generated content undermines that.

eg:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45077654

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44704054

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43979537

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43085967

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43085954

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42976756

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40600057

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46102885

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45572704

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43979537

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41237678

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40569734

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35210503

The people he's addressing were either actively trying to fool other users, or lazily using AI to engage as superficially as they could.

The comment here was a borderline case of the latter, but I think it was on the worthwhile side of the border, personally.

In any case, a blanket prohibition is pointless, because it won't be long before there's simply no way to tell.

A blanket prohibition may be futile but it's anything but pointless.

Once Hacker News becomes nothing but bots posting stories written by bots for other bots to comment on - which is the inevitable end point of a permissive attitude towards this stuff - what even is the fucking point to any of this? SEO juice?

Thanks, I wasn't aware.

I'll understand if dang takes it down, but the heavy (and intentional, I assume) irony makes it one I'd personally keep up. Thanks for posting that.