[altmanaltman]

Honestly, after checking out the link, seems like something I'll personally never use/want.

I'm okay with crawling through comments and taking in the various viewpoints instead of having an LLM summarize it for me.

It basically kills the entire tone/vibe of the place and makes everything seem like robot-written with no personality. Also it's kind of weird you're taking other people's words and then reframing it for them/others.

Also nowhere does that thread seem to be "overwhelming with information" like you originally claimed. Basically solving a non-problem.

[georgeck]

Fair enough. I completely understand that the experience and hunting for gems in the comments is the core appeal of HN for many and AI summaries definitely aren't for everyone.

That said, we are seeing a consistent daily user base who do find value in the summarization, so it seems to be solving a pain point for a specific segment of readers, even if not for all.

Apart from the AI features, we actually built HN Companion as a general power-user client. It supports keyboard-first navigation (vim-style J/K bindings for comment navigation), seeing context for parent/child comments without losing your place, and tracking specific authors across a thread.

You might find those utility features useful even if you ignore the summary sidebar entirely. In the browser extension, the summary panel is something the user have to activate - it doesn't show-up by default.