I call it pseudo-critique — active stupidity in the name of critical thinking — but that’s too general.
replyThe current strategy of the AI hype machine is to exhaust people's reserves of attention by presenting a never-ending stream of hard-to-verify "positive" claims. It's Gish Gallop done on the Internet scale with a never-ending parade of tech influencers, proxy "journalists" and low-value accounts. The whole strategy aims for saturation and demoralized acceptance.
replyIt's no surprise that people readjust their immediate reactions by expressing hostility and skepticism about anything AI-related without spending much time on analysis. In fact, it's an entirely rational repones.
Complaining about it without acknowledging the larger picture is disingenuous.
In this particular case, using the term "machine learning" would likely avoid the immediate negative reaction.
It feels related to “it’s easier to argue with a smart person than an idiot.”
replyIt’s really exhausting to feel negative all the time when faced with the cavalcade of terribly weak claims.
Written like someone who hasn't used AI since the great paradigm shift of December 2025.
replyWas that the one immediately after the great paradigm shift of November 2025, and before the great paradigm shift of January 2026? I think I remember it.
replyThere was no such paradigm shift. LLMs still suck just as much as they did before, in the exact same ways they did before. In 6 months you'll be trying to BS us about the "great paradigm shift of summer 2026".
replyco-slop. In the categorical sense, slop with all the relationships reversed.
replyhn discourse is not nearly as high-quality as people would like to believe.
replyIt’s very bimodal.
replyjust like everywhere else? reddit has fairly good wheat among the chaff just the same?
replyReddit's top contributors are decent, but there is an elite niche of people (granted, mostly of the technical variety) who somewhat regularly show up on HN but do not contribute much on Reddit.
replyIt does help, of course, that HN is moderated in good faith and has a more pervasive commitment to self-moderation than Reddit has ever had (outside a few very niche subreddits).
They both share the same problem: nobody who gripes incorrectly like this suffers any consequences. So you may as well gripe at anything and everything. Griping feels good and you rarely ever get downvotes on HN because griping is such a part of the site culture, whether you're incorrect or not. There's a recent HN guideline about being curmudgeonly but we all know that guidelines on this site are rarely followed.
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