The Consumption of AI-Generated Content at Scale
Key topics
As the internet becomes increasingly saturated with AI-generated content, commenters are sounding the alarm - but some are also questioning whether their skepticism is justified. Many are pointing out that the article in question bears the hallmarks of AI writing, from awkward phrasing to overly formal section headings. However, others are suggesting that this knee-jerk reaction to suspect AI-generated content might be a sign of a deeper issue, with some commenters accusing others of virtue-signaling by decrying "AI slop." The debate is sparking a lively discussion about the blurred lines between human and AI-generated content.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Very active discussionFirst comment
8m
Peak period
30
168-180h
Avg / period
10.7
Based on 32 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Dec 1, 2025 at 5:08 PM EST
about 1 month ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Dec 1, 2025 at 5:16 PM EST
8m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
30 comments in 168-180h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Dec 9, 2025 at 10:40 AM EST
about 1 month ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
Much of the world has agreed to sound like machines.
Another thing I've noticed is that weird stuff that is perhaps off in some way, also gets accused of being LLMs because it doesn't feel right.
If you sound unique and weird you get accused of being a bad LLM that can't falsify humanity well enough, and if you sounds boring and bland and boosterist, you get accused of being a good LLM.
You can't write like no one else, but you also can't write like everybody else.
"We embody <adjective> <noun> through <adjective> <noun>, <adjective> <noun>, and <adjective> <noun>. "
my uncanny warning blares--so I test if it becomes more intelligible with the adjectives stripped out. These padded-out pabulums are the tells.
I hope Elements of Style is rediscovered.
There's plenty of small tells, starting with section headings, but the author openly says she writes using LLMs: https://www.sh-reya.com/blog/ai-writing/#how-i-write-with-ll...
Just skimming throught the first two paragraphs felt like I as reading a ChatGPT response. That and the fact that there's multiple em dashes in the intro alone.
They're a great way to "inject" something into a sentence, similar to how people speak in person. I feel like my written style has now gotten worse because I have to dumb it down, or I'll be anxious any writing/linguistic flourish will be interpreted as gen AI
The other day I posted a short showcasing some artwork I made for a TCG I'm in the process of creating.
Comments poured in saying it was "doomed to fail" because it was just "AI slop"
In the video itself I explained how I made them, in Adobe Illustrator (even showing some of the layers, elements, etc).
Next I'm actually posting a recording of me making a character from start to finish, a timelapse.
Will be interesting if I get any more "AI slop" comments, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to share anything drawn now because people immediately assume it's generated.
Do not expect them to retract or stop if there's a way to not see the making of :P
It's not even funny. You can google "asamiarts tracing over AI" and read the whole drama. They have not only timelapse, but real world footage as 'evidence.' And they are not the only case.
It's not the fight you can win. Either ignore the comments calling you AI or just use AI.
My life has come full circle when gooner AI art tracer drama gets mentioned on HN. Its crazy the lengths they went to try and cover it all up including faked procreate shots with botched UI elements.
This is insidious and if humans were doing it they would be fired and/or cancelled on the spot. Yet we continue to rave about how amazing LLMs are!
It's actually a complete reversal on self driving car AI. Humans crash cars and hurt people all the time. AI cars are already much safer drivers than humans. However, we all go nuts when a Waymo runs over a cat, but ignore the fact that humans do that on a daily basis!
Something is really broken in our collective morals and reasoning
I feel this statement should come with a hefty caveat.
"But look at this statistic" you might retort, but I feel the statistics people pose are weighted heavily in the autonomous service's favor.
The frontrunner in autonomous taxis only runs in very specific cities for very specific reasons.
I avoid using them out of a feeble attempt to 'do my part', but I was recently talking to a friend and was surprised that they avoid using these autonomous services because they drive, what would be to a human driver, very strange routes.
I wondered if these unconventional, often longer, routes were also taken in order to stick to well trodden and predictable paths.
"X deaths/injuries per mile" is a useless metric when the autonomous vehicles only drive in specific places and conditions.
To get the true statistic you'd have to filter the human driver statistics to match the autonomous services' data. Things like weather, cities, number of and location of people in the vehicle, and even which streets.
These service providers could do this, they have the data, compute, and engineering to do so, though they are disincentivized to do so as long as everyone keeps parroting their marketing speak for them.
Well it would seem these autonomous driving service providers disagree with your claim that it is just a 'small tweak' considering they only operate under these specific conditions when it would be to their substantial benefit to instead operate everywhere and at all times.
Nothing like that was shown. We have a bunch of very "motivated reasoning" kind of studies and best you can conclude from them is that "some circumstances where ai cars are safer drivers exist". The common trick is to compare overall human records with ai car record in super tailored circumstances.
They have potential to be safer drivers one day, if they will be produced by companies that are forced to care about safety by regulations.
There's no reason for most things to have been written. Whatever point is being made is pointless. It's not really entertaining, it's meant to be identified with; it's not a call to any specific action; it doesn't create some new fertile interpretation of past events or ideas; it's not even a cry for help. It's just pointless fluff to surround advertising. From a high concept likely dictated by somebody's boss.
AI has no passion and no point. It is not trying to convince anyone of anything, because it does not care. If AI were trying to be convincing, it would try to conceal its own style. But it doesn't mean anything for an AI to try. It's just running through the motions of filling out an idea to a certain length. It's whatever the opposite of compression is.
A generation of writers raised on fanfiction and prestige tv who grew up to write Buzzfeed articles at the rate of five a day are indistinguishable from AI.
Why This Matters
>In the pre-LLM era, I could build mental models, rely on heuristics, or spot-check information strategically.
I wonder if this will be an enduring advantage of the current generation - building your formative world model in a pre-AI era. It seems plausible to me that anyone who built the foundations there has a much higher chance of having instincts that are more grounded even if post-AI experiences are layered on later
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/antiai/comments/1p8z6y6/nano_banana...
What a great point. In some work loops I feel like I get addicted to seeing what pops in the next generation.
One of the things i Learned from moderating internet usage is not fall prey to recommendation systems. As in, when I am on the web, I only consume what I explicitly looked for, and not what the algorithm thinks i should consume next.
sites like reddit and HN make this tricky.
perhaps even a frustration you can't quite name
It doesn't appear to be section headings glued together with bullet lists so maybe the content really does retain the author's perspective but at this point I'd rather skip stuff I know has been run through an LLM and miss a few gems rather than get slopped daily.