I don't know whether there is an AI mechanism behind the scenes or not, but I have noticed the same pattern for multiple subjects as well.
One day you see a post about IDEs, the next hour or so it's full of IDE posts; some of them are even duplicates of the original one.
Another time will be about Machine Learning; next thing you know, it's full of posts related to the original one, with the only difference in post time.
I guess only dang could enlighten us here to understand better the HN backend logic..? /thinking
Most of the times it's just that the first post reminds other persons of interesting similar stuff, and they post them. Also, many times people follow the links of the original post and get new items to submit. So it's common to have waves of post of similar topics.
One day you see a post about IDEs, the next hour or so it's full of IDE posts; some of them are even duplicates of the original one.
Another time will be about Machine Learning; next thing you know, it's full of posts related to the original one, with the only difference in post time.
I guess only dang could enlighten us here to understand better the HN backend logic..? /thinking