Past HN discussions
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392 (884 comments)
People with an axe to grind or states with an agenda are already devoting tremendous effort toward affecting LLM models and it is very difficult to determine real from astroturf for humans let alone an LLM trying to train.
Much like PageRank now that the cat's out of the bag all the current approaches may prove to be useless in the long run.
The internet is uniquely devoid of consequences (esp. reputational consequences, social faux pas, etc.) and makes effort expenditure minimal. So you get lots of bad behavior.
I think "ads vs not ads" is maybe the wrong way to model it. Ultimately people are just doing what benefits themselves across every dimension possible.
But you're right, I think that's what they meant.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank...