[slfnflctd]

Human journalists and marketing copy writers have been writing like this for at least 50 years, if not considerably longer.

I am exhausted by so many people calling writing out as AI without sufficient proof other than writing style. Some things are more obvious, sure... maybe I'm just too stupid to see a lot of the rest of it? But so much of what gets called out seems incredibly familiar to me compared with traditional print media I've been reading my entire life.

I'm starting to wonder if a lot of people just have poor literacy skills and are knee-jerk labeling anything that looks well written as AI.

[GavinMcG]

I think one factor is the lack of variation. Sure, a copywriter might use those techniques as a hook, but there’s far more content using them paragraph after paragraph after paragraph than I’ve ever seen before.

You might also reframe how you read those comments. Perhaps when people are labeling a piece as “written by AI,” they’re just conveying that they perceive it to use the same “voice” that LLMs use, and judge that voice negatively. Sometimes people say things non-literally and don’t need proof.

[fleebee]

You're right that (some) marketing copy writers have been writing in this style for decades, but suddenly every second tech blogger has assumed the same voice in the past 2 years. Not everyone is as sensitive to it. I read this crap daily so I've developed an awareness and I'm confident in calling it out.

I don't think I've personally seen a single false positive on HN. If anything, too much slop goes through uncontested.

[cyral]

> If anything, too much slop goes through uncontested.

It's actually insane opening up /r/webdev and similar subreddits and seeing dozens of AI authored posts with 50+ comments and maybe a single person calling it out. Makes me feel crazy. It's not as much of a problem here, but there is absolutely a writing style that suddenly 50% of submissions are using. It's always to promote something and watching people fall for it over and over again is upsetting.