It was embarrassing a year+ ago when much of this technology barely worked at all.
If you did not perceive a step change in model capabilities in late 2025, it's possible you are working on problems that are just too hard or not well aligned (e.g., arts and crafts). If you are working on software and need to move the occasional mountain, it's really hard to argue with the capabilities of contemporary models and harnesses.
This space is evolving rapidly. Faster in some areas than others, but you should still keep an open mind and adapt to the new realities as they emerge. Wishing for a thing to fail can blind you to more opportunities than you would probably be willing to reject if they were presented directly.
Nov'25-Dec-25 something changed. I believe that was the time when Opus 4.5 was launched. (we went from function auto-complete to module auto-complete) People came from the vacations, and were like, make AI do your work. One could actually start offloading work to LLMs.
LLMs are clearly world changing technology. I'm no fan of the big corporations but I'm very excited to see the models themselves develop. I'm looking forward to the day I can self host these things.
It's the metrics though. I've noticed that AI topics get hundreds of votes, that means either someone is trying to beat the algorithm to stay in the top news, or suddenly this place is filled with thousands of AI enthusiasts who ignore all the rest, non-AI topics. (Thousands because not everyone will upvote, so if only a fraction upvotes hundreds of upvotes should translate to thousands.)
I honestly think even the hypebros are less embarrassing than the full-on Luddites that think LLMs are an ontological evil.
It should really not surprise you that Hacker News, a community with an extremely technical audience, is interested in a bleeding edge technical tool that is literally completely reshaping the industry.
> Could just be a surge in enthusiasm after 10 years when all we had to be excited about was a new Javascript framework.
No. I distinctly remember HN being fairly skeptical of LLMs the way they were sold back in 2023. Then, the astroturfing began happening gradually. First in the comments and then in the posts.
Yeah, I was very skeptical and now I've drank the kool-aid. Got multiple parallel cloud agents with independent loops making PRs and me reviewing them. AI is also reviewing PRs and sometimes even catches useful things.
LLMs in 2023, from what I remember, were slightly better auto complete. It's pretty different now.
I'm using AI in many ways but I'm not ignoring that it has some real costs. The code AI writes is too voluminous to fully review. I'm quite disconnected from it, and probably won't be able to maintain it myself. The more we use AI to code, the more our real skills atrophy (already feeling that). And when AI pricing finally catches up with the astronomical spending going into it, people are going to have a rude awakening. Nothing good is coming from any of this, unless you're able to cash in before the economy collapses when this bubble finally bursts.
AI pricing finally catching up? What do you mean? Every few months prices are going down by 5x. Your price correction will not happen and it’s time to accept it.
Yeah but that's just how things have gone. My enthusiasm about a new JavaScript framework is practically zero these days compared to several years ago, and I do genuinely use AI for all of my coding especially since I developed a health issue that prevents me from typing
Or, you know, many people genuinely find it exciting to see AI pumping their long overdue side-projects, just like many people once found bikeshedding their frontend frameworks exciting?
> would have to be state law so the president can't pardon them
Sure. Based on cursory analysis, California (B&P § 17200 + § 17941), New York (§ 63(12)) and New Hampshire (RSA 664:14 / 664:16 + RSA 358-A) seem to be good places to start. Worst case, we get a public record of who paid for what under what pretences.
Unfortunately you're not going to see any sort of legal redress against American oligarchs in any sort of American legal venue.
A country like France has shown that they're willing to take no an oligarch[0], and they have the nuclear means to protect themselves from American oligarchs leveraging the American military to punish France for doing so.
This kind of stuff will continue until a country like France forces a jet carrying someone like Musk, Altman, Thiel, or Zuckerberg to land so that they can be arrested, tried, convicted, and forced to spend a few years to decades in a drab little room.
Funny, I was told by HN commenters that worries about AI risk are just a clever marketing strategy on the part of OpenAI and friends. I wonder why they would be working so hard to push back?
>But there don’t seem to be any contributors, or at least not human ones. I ran every article on the site through Pangram (the AI detector that credibly claims a near-zero false-positive rate). Of the 94 articles, 69% came back flagged as fully AI-generated, with another 28% flagged as partially AI-generated. Only three articles were classified as human-authored.
The only reason OpenAI wants to give 5% of the company to the US government is so they become 'to big to fail'. They dont give a s** about the US, its just a way to get funding when the bubble bursts
“Using your own firm’s president as a supposedly independent expert, without acknowledging the relationship, is a striking departure from basic journalistic norms”
Well that’s about the nicest possible way to phrase that…
Why do people insist on giving shady characters the benefit of the doubt? It’s pretty clear what’s happening here and yet the level of effort put into avoiding judgement seems excessive.
This place average post went from “look at this new javascript framework” to “I just became 100x more productive with AI” in the last 3 years
If you did not perceive a step change in model capabilities in late 2025, it's possible you are working on problems that are just too hard or not well aligned (e.g., arts and crafts). If you are working on software and need to move the occasional mountain, it's really hard to argue with the capabilities of contemporary models and harnesses.
This space is evolving rapidly. Faster in some areas than others, but you should still keep an open mind and adapt to the new realities as they emerge. Wishing for a thing to fail can blind you to more opportunities than you would probably be willing to reject if they were presented directly.
The marketing is doing a pro social thing by spreading the word on the capabilities.
The alternative is slower diffusion and the kind of people who prefer this are those who like the exclusivity for a bit of time. Is that you?
LLMs are clearly world changing technology. I'm no fan of the big corporations but I'm very excited to see the models themselves develop. I'm looking forward to the day I can self host these things.
The imbalance is what is off.
It should really not surprise you that Hacker News, a community with an extremely technical audience, is interested in a bleeding edge technical tool that is literally completely reshaping the industry.
Your analysis by account age might be telling
No. I distinctly remember HN being fairly skeptical of LLMs the way they were sold back in 2023. Then, the astroturfing began happening gradually. First in the comments and then in the posts.
Edit: ok, i guess this account is from 2024, but been around a while. I guess can’t defend myself like this :)
Obviously, in my opinion, based on reporting of truthfulness someone like Sam Altman would not be entirely opposed to astroturfing here.
But people should probably appreciate at the least running free local software that has a few tricks up its sleeve.
LLMs in 2023, from what I remember, were slightly better auto complete. It's pretty different now.
Unleash bots and sock puppets, generate mindless hype. Add a bit of circular accounting.
Watch the investments roll in and the share price soar up.
Profit...
Sure. Based on cursory analysis, California (B&P § 17200 + § 17941), New York (§ 63(12)) and New Hampshire (RSA 664:14 / 664:16 + RSA 358-A) seem to be good places to start. Worst case, we get a public record of who paid for what under what pretences.
What's the actual fraud angle? Non disclosure?
A country like France has shown that they're willing to take no an oligarch[0], and they have the nuclear means to protect themselves from American oligarchs leveraging the American military to punish France for doing so.
This kind of stuff will continue until a country like France forces a jet carrying someone like Musk, Altman, Thiel, or Zuckerberg to land so that they can be arrested, tried, convicted, and forced to spend a few years to decades in a drab little room.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel...
How credible is this credible claim?
Well that’s about the nicest possible way to phrase that…
Why do people insist on giving shady characters the benefit of the doubt? It’s pretty clear what’s happening here and yet the level of effort put into avoiding judgement seems excessive.