With the rise of LLM bot networks and boards, I’m wondering if HN has already been infiltrated by bots.
EDIT What I mean: I’m wondering if people let their bots post/comment on their behalf. I’m wondering how we can detect and prevent this from happening at scale.
I don’t think simple thing...
EDIT What I mean: I’m wondering if people let their bots post/comment on their behalf. I’m wondering how we can detect and prevent this from happening at scale.
I don’t think simple things account creation date alone is a reliable qualifier. You could easily give your bot access to post using an old account.
Comments
By gus_massa 2026-01-3115:42 If you see a very strange pattern, you can send an email to hn@ycombinator.com so dang/tomhow can take a look.
As the other comments say, there is a lot of spam that is detected automatically and manually. You can take a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/newest with "showdead" enabled. While you are there, remember to upvote good post and flag spam.
By bell-cot 2026-01-3113:31 What does "infiltrated by bots" mean? I'm sure there are some users running scripts, bots, and/or ai's here. Others are obviously just here to pitch their product, or seem like shills for various things.
But overall - whatever dang & co are doing to minimize the problem seems to be working fine.
So we are re-inventing what was then called a 'botnet' but with LLMs.
What's old is now 'new' again.
By benttoothpaste 2026-01-3113:46 Considering the famous lack of appreciation for security and sandboxing in Clawdbot community this will soon transform into a very traditional botnet.
