I've been using HN since 2008 when I created my first account[1] and I use HN differently than most people. I have a group of bookmarked searches that I visit almost daily that relate to technologies that interest me, such as Emacs.
In the past year, the searches I perform that relate to web development show a horrifying increase in the amount of Show HN posts that are posted by new accounts, include AI generated descriptions and point to AI generated projects on GitHub.
In 2024, there were 17,661 Show HN posts.[2] In the past year, there have been over 448,000 Show HN posts![3] And of course, most of these posts are AI generated.
Also, if you check the new accounts posting all this AI slop, you'll see that some of them also post AI generated comments in other threads, which is the main problem.
But for me, what is even more annoying is the enormous increase in new accounts created by nontechnical vibecoders who now think of themselves as technologists and who post worthless, ignorant comments that actually get upvoted, presumably by similar folks who have unfortunately been creating accounts at HN in the past 10 years or so.
As a result, 2026 is the first year in which I visit HN about once a week instead of about once a day.
The fact that this discussion was flagged might be the final nail in the coffin for me. The huge increase in AI generated comments and posts at HN is a topic that has been discussed on other forums for months now. Complaints include "Orange Reddit", "Orange LinkedIn", etc. But when the topic comes up at HN, it gets flagged. Fuck this.
I would like to encourage you to step back a little and try to get a broader view on this issue.
I don't want to discuss whether there is more LLM-generated content or not. There clearly is, and there is no feasible way to get rid of it , because there is simply no reliable way to distinguish what was made by humans and what wasn't. Regardless of what is claimed, it is just not possible, if only because hybrid forms exist as well. This text was written by me, but reviewed and stylistically adjusted by an LLM.
It is therefore completely pointless to get upset about LLM content and demand anything from the moderators.
All we are left with are our votes and the "reputation" of our user handles - and the awareness that we need to learn to consume content with a great deal of skepticism. We should have been doing this all along, but it seems to be something we struggle with.
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
And yes, this may mean that we stop using anonymous online platforms altogether, because nothing on them can be relied upon anymore. That is a shame, but it cannot be stopped — Pandora's LLM box has been open for at least five years.
I therefore consider any discussion about banning LLM content to be futile. We are witnessing another Eternal September here: it couldn't be stopped back then, and it won't be stopped today either.
Many people in this and other threads around this topic have already stated what they are going to do, which is the inevitable conclusion: move to private chats/discords. I’m sure some amount will remain on IRC or maybe IRC will get a second wind (unlikely). Websites like HN will have to make a choice going forward because now they’re on a trajectory to complete enshittification. Your handle and karma doesn’t matter if the site is dominated by bots. It’s basically a hollow shell of what it used to be and there’s no value to it at a certain point. You’ll be replying to bots more than humans.
There’s plenty left to discuss for humans. But LLMs don’t discuss.
There are plenty of tech forums that don't discuss AI. I think your confusion might be the result of you equating tech with "writing code for employers."
By the way, have you seriously never written[1] so much as a single backup script to back up a personal system? You only use GUI backup software?
I haven’t actually used my personal computer for much after graduating from college.
1. To access the internet
2. To download music from Napster and later iTunes and to create mix CDs and later for my iPod
3. To mix music with CoolEdit (bought by Adobe as Adobe Audition) - I was a fitness instructor and created my own 32 bpm beat synchronized music
4. As a home media theater PC (Mac Mini + Front Row) and later a media server (Plex)
My backup was running BackBlaze. When we moved and I decided Plex + bit torrent wasn’t worth the hassle, I did a one time “aws s3 -sync…” and copied my 2TB of media to AWS S3 Glacier Deep Archive in my personal account. I’ve opened my personal computer - that I only bought for a one time contract for a former CTO/friend when I was between jobs for a month.
> Never thought this would be something people actually take seriously
The author of the article has a bachelor's degree in economics[1], worked as a product manager (not a dev) and only started using GitHub[2] in 2025 when they were laid off[3].
Whilst I won't comment on this specific person, one of the best programmers I've met has a law degree, so I wouldn't use their degree against them. People can have many interests and skills.
All of the comments posted by the HN account named jaynamburi were written using an AI. Gemini confirms this: "Based on an analysis of the comments on the profile you linked, it is highly likely that they are written by an AI (or a human heavily using an LLM to generate responses)."
> broke their workflows because of vague technical reasons
> I switched to Vivaldi
You refer to important security improvements as "vague technical reasons" and you switched to Vivaldi, a browser that is based[1] on extended stable Chromium, which is not "recommended for any team where security is a primary concern"[2].
WTF. I have a separate computer solely for personal finance, domain registration, DNS management, and the associated email account. If I didn't use multiple computers this way, I'd go back to using Qubes OS.
Paranoia is justified if it actually serves some purpose. Staying paralyzed and not doing anything because Someone Is Reading Your Data is not serving much of anything. Hint: those Someones have better things to do. LLM vendors really don't care about your bank statements, and if they were ever in a position to look, they'd prefer not to have them, as it just creates legal and reputational risks for them.
> as it just creates legal and reputational risks for them.
Unfortunately I laughed reading this as there is never neither reputation nor legal consequences in the US of A. They can leak your entire life into my console including every account and every password you have and all PII of your entire family and literally nothing would happen… everything is stored somewhere and eventually will be used when “growth” is needed. some meaningless fines will be paid here and there but those bank statements will make their way to myriad of business that would drool to see them
There obviously is reputation and legal consequences. You can get fined for billions for a far more indirect privacy violation that what you are describing. If any big company ever does that, I won't be touching it with a 10 foot pole. And no I don't believe using data for showing me ad is on the same level of privacy violation.
fining facebook 5bn is like fining me $100. and reputation… please… we all know facebook what facebook is/does, they can release secretly recorded phone calls you are making and it’ll be news for like 17 minutes and people will then keep doomscrolling etc
The issue of consequences of data leaks, though real and something I find outrageous, is orthogonal to this discussion. When talking about sending personal or sensitive data to AI companies, people are not worrying about data leaks - they're worrying about AI company doing some kind of Something to it, and Somehow profit off selling their underpants.
(And yes, no one really says what that Something or Somehow may be, or how their underpants play into this.)
people should 1,000,000% be worried about AI company doing something kind of something with it which they are doing as we speak and if not now will be profiting soon-ish
If you think people not using a tool released yesterday are staying paralyzed you must be either working for Anthropic or an enthusiastic follower, in both cases your opinion is not valid. None of this is something that is revolutionary and People have created trillion dollar companies without Claude Max
They somehow have to make big money, so it's just a matter of time until they will sell services to others, based on your personal data. And they probably have some clause in their contracts where you give them the right doing it.
You don't remember when people were generating private keys and tokens using github copilot in the early versions? I'm not sure if they ever completely fixed the issue, but it was a bit scary.
> I am genuinely confused by this comment, given the intensity of disregard/ignorance/bad-faith.
I conversely am confused by the amount of knee-jerk reaction to the word "privacy" people here have.
> I mean we had these before in other very similar topics regarding e.g. Snowden leaks but really a lot of things. So.. uh..
Yes, exactly. Now consider that the world kept on spinning anyway, and the revelations from the aforementioned leaks turned out to have exactly zero impact on the vast majority of people.
To be clear: I'm not questioning the ethical importance of all that privacy talk, just practical importance. It's bad that we don't have more control and protection of our data by default, but at the same time, excepting few people and organizations, the impact is so small in practice that it's not worth the energy spent being so militant about it.
I understand that you have given up and trust me, I can see why one would do that.
That is fine. You can do that.
What is not fine however is discrediting the people that haven't given up as paranoid militant lunatics.
You can be nihilistic, disillusioned, <other adjectives> all you want, but it is not okay to pull other people down and attack them just because they still believe in something you do not appear to be doing (anymore?)
In the past year, the searches I perform that relate to web development show a horrifying increase in the amount of Show HN posts that are posted by new accounts, include AI generated descriptions and point to AI generated projects on GitHub.
In 2024, there were 17,661 Show HN posts.[2] In the past year, there have been over 448,000 Show HN posts![3] And of course, most of these posts are AI generated.
Also, if you check the new accounts posting all this AI slop, you'll see that some of them also post AI generated comments in other threads, which is the main problem.
But for me, what is even more annoying is the enormous increase in new accounts created by nontechnical vibecoders who now think of themselves as technologists and who post worthless, ignorant comments that actually get upvoted, presumably by similar folks who have unfortunately been creating accounts at HN in the past 10 years or so.
As a result, 2026 is the first year in which I visit HN about once a week instead of about once a day.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=zartan
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22Show+HN%22&dateRange=custom...
[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22Show+HN%22&dateRange=pastYe...