Ask HN: How do we build a new Human First online community in the LLM age?
7 points
7 hours ago
| 4 comments
| HN
I basically grew up online and I have some lifelong friends I met online. I cherish the real potential for international community that can be built on the web, there really is nothing like it

I have been finding myself feeling very bitter about AI lately. I'm angry about how it's seeping into every aspect of life. Not just my work and my hobbies but it also seems to be creeping into many online communities (including this one!)

I have been thinking a lot about how we could possibly build any of the trust that we used to have online. Yes, bots have been a problem for a long time but this is so much further beyond spam posting. LLMs have poisoned the commons online At Scale and there's likely no going back. It has made me very bitter, I won't lie.

However that doesn't mean we can't find a way forward with something new that is somehow resistant to LLMs. I'm not sure what exactly that might look like but I'm curious what ideas others have had.

My wish list would be something that

* Is resistant to LLM "infiltration" for lack of a better word. We should be able to be relatively confident that people on the other end are real humans

* Does not require giving up all anonymity. It will likely require some identity authority but interactions between users should/could be pseudonymous at least

* Ideally is also resistant to LLM scraping. I personally find the thought of sharing work publicly now so LLMs can ingest it is demoralizing

I know it's a big ask and maybe not realistic. I'm curious what HN thinks about this possibility though

Edit: This was partially inspired by the recent mod post discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079

I respect that HN's mod team is willing to sort of leave this up to the honor system, but I think in the future we are going to need some serious ideas to strictly prevent this unwanted behavior, not just hope people will play nice

yukapero
1 hour ago
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dead end. human verification just leads to a digital prison of ids

the real issue isn't bots, it's humans using ai. i'm doing it right now. English isn't my first language so i used an llm to translate my thoughts for this post. if the tech is this useful for bridging gaps, you can't really filter for a "soul" anymore. the line is already gone.

scraping is a lost cause too. if a human can read it, a model can ingest it

i guess the only fix is to stop scaling. go back to small, private, invite-only groups. intentional friction and making things "inconvenient" is the only filter left that actually works

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raw_anon_1111
22 minutes ago
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Interesting, your comment doesn’t read like AI slop.
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allinonetools_
4 hours ago
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One thing that helped older communities was friction — things like slower posting, reputation built over time, and real participation history. When identity grows from consistent behavior instead of instant access, it is much harder for bots to blend in. Communities used to value that patience a lot more.
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FloatArtifact
6 hours ago
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I think it's important to focus on the local geographically close group of people that we have relationships first.
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bluefirebrand
6 hours ago
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I think you're right, but I've been pretty isolated from local people since I moved to a new city

Time to get back out there and meet people I guess

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Johnny_Bonk
3 hours ago
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Check out my project :) feelfamiliar.com
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up-n-atom
7 hours ago
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wearables. u need to authenticate a literal pulse. essentially a passkey for being alive. we can’t allow a corporate entity control, it needs to be truly open and not like fido.
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