I wonder why people are afraid of AI content generation on social media, especially HN. Is the fear that bad actors will just generate random comments for... fun? Or that spam will become more intelligent and craft. As in it will be less like in-your-face ads and more like product placement.
Now image 150,000 AI bots in addition. That's actually an overkill, you don't need that many. But those bots (or whoever rules them) will rule the discourse. This is of course assuming that you can't tell the difference of a bot and a human.
Then of course we have to ask, what's bot owner's agenda. Political? Promotions? Educational?
The human voice is going to drown in there. Humans get exhausted, emotional, personal, just to name a few. The bots are always in the zone. Human are not going to last an argument with an (good) AI botnet.
We're not there yet. But there's so much money in that category, that as soon as the tech will allow we will be.
AI generated comments combined with AI driven moderation could help maintain a high standard of comment quality and civility while keeping the Eternal September effect at bay by suppressing human engagement.
Imagine a HN where AI finds and submits the articles, provides a neutral title and brief description, generates high-level discussion about it, and moderates for bad behavior. It would be a win for everyone.
I still don't see why anyone would do this. Especially on a super specialized forum as HN. Without a clear incentive, the only thing I can think of is malice.
