How much of HN is AI?
How much of HN is AI?
Hacker News 上有多少内容是 AI 生成的？
TL;DR: As of June 2026, ~50% of daily top stories are about AI or generated by AI. 简而言之：截至 2026 年 6 月，每日头条新闻中约有 50% 是关于 AI 的，或是由 AI 生成的。
I have a complicated relationship with Hacker News. The site is the most important aggregator of geek news and a major source of traffic to this blog. At the same time, it has a fair number of toxic commenters, making it a dependable source of insults hurled in my general direction; if you want a taste, this article has been called “watered-down” and “slop”. 我对 Hacker News (HN) 的感情很复杂。它是最重要的极客新闻聚合网站，也是我博客的主要流量来源。与此同时，它也有不少言辞刻薄的评论者，这使它成了针对我个人进行人身攻击的稳定来源；如果你想见识一下，这篇文章就被评论为“平淡无奇”和“垃圾内容”。
The site is run by geeks and for geeks, so it’s not immune to tech trends; for example, around 2018, it had a fair number of stories focused on cryptocurrencies and NFTs. That said, the recent shift feels more profound: almost every day, it feels that the lineup is dominated by stories focused on AI, written by AI, or commented on by AI. 这个网站由极客运营，也服务于极客，因此它无法对技术趋势免疫；例如，在 2018 年左右，它有相当多关于加密货币和 NFT 的报道。话虽如此，最近的变化感觉更为深刻：几乎每天，头条列表似乎都被关于 AI 的报道、由 AI 撰写的文章或由 AI 参与评论的内容所占据。
HN AI singularity (July 21, 2026). That image shows a particularly bad day, so to give a more honest assessment, I also performed a more systematic survey in February 2026, and again in June of the same year. HN 的 AI 奇点（2026 年 7 月 21 日）。那张图片展示的是情况特别糟糕的一天，为了给出更客观的评估，我在 2026 年 2 月以及同年 6 月分别进行了更系统的调查。
Original February 2026 investigation
2026 年 2 月的初步调查
To get a sense of how much of the feed is occupied by AI-related topics, I took a sampling of the daily top #5 for all of February: 为了了解信息流中有多少内容被 AI 相关话题占据，我抽取了 2 月份每天排名前 5 的文章进行分析：
AI took four out of five spots on Feb 4 and Feb 12, plus arguably the entire line-up on Feb 5 (story #3 was submarine marketing for an AI vendor). The only days without LLM news in the top 5 were February 1 (with the first AI story at #7, then #9), February 9 (first at #8), and February 25 (with AI at #6, #9, #10). 2 月 4 日和 12 日，AI 占据了前五名中的四个席位，2 月 5 日甚至可以说占据了全部（第 3 条是某 AI 供应商的隐蔽营销）。前五名中没有大语言模型（LLM）新闻的日子只有 2 月 1 日（第一条 AI 新闻排在第 7 位，然后是第 9 位）、2 月 9 日（第一条排在第 8 位）和 2 月 25 日（AI 分别排在第 6、第 9 和第 10 位）。
For the second part of the experiment — figuring out which stories were likely AI-written — I tapped into Pangram. Pangram is a remarkably good, conservative model for detecting LLM-generated text. These detectors have bad rap among techies, but the objections are often based on outdated assumptions or outright misconceptions. For the tools to work, AI writing doesn’t need to be in any way “inhuman”. It’s enough that the default voice of the current crop of LLMs is quasi-deterministic: ask for the same essay twice and you’ll get a stylistically similar result. The individual mannerisms are human-like, but it’s very unlikely that your writing combines the exact same set. I write about it a bit more here. 实验的第二部分是找出哪些文章可能是由 AI 撰写的，我使用了 Pangram。Pangram 是一个非常出色且保守的 LLM 生成文本检测模型。这类检测工具在极客圈名声不佳，但这些反对意见往往基于过时的假设或完全的误解。要使这些工具发挥作用，AI 写作并不需要表现得“非人类”。只要当前这批 LLM 的默认语调具有准确定性就足够了：对同一个题目要求写两次，你得到的文章在风格上会非常相似。虽然单个的表达习惯看起来像人类，但你的写作几乎不可能组合出完全相同的一套习惯。我在这里对此有更多论述。
To validate the results, I also reviewed all the flagged stories and I think the findings make sense; if anything, Pangram had a couple of false negatives. To give you a sense of what was flagged, have a look at the #3 story on February 19 (“AI is not a coworker, it’s an exoskeleton”). It had 500+ upvotes and 500+ comments. In my opinion, it has a wide range of red flags. 为了验证结果，我还审查了所有被标记的文章，我认为这些发现是合理的；如果说有什么问题，那就是 Pangram 还有几个漏报的情况。为了让你了解什么是被标记的内容，可以看看 2 月 19 日排名第 3 的文章（《AI 不是同事，它是外骨骼》）。它获得了 500 多个赞和 500 多条评论。在我看来，它有大量的“危险信号”。
Updated data for June 2026
2026 年 6 月的更新数据
In June, to capture more detail, I used solid black for pure-play AI navel-gazing (vendor announcements, op-eds about the benefits or drawbacks of the technology, etc) and hatched shapes for stories that lean heavily into AI, but have broader ramifications (e.g., the Instagram AI support agent account hack). As before, stories that are only tangentially related to AI (e.g., reports of RAM price hikes) are not flagged. 在 6 月份，为了捕捉更多细节，我用纯黑色标记了纯粹的 AI 自我陶醉式内容（供应商公告、关于技术利弊的评论文章等），并用阴影形状标记了那些深度涉及 AI 但具有更广泛影响的文章（例如 Instagram AI 支持代理账号被黑事件）。和之前一样，仅与 AI 间接相关的文章（例如内存价格上涨的报道）不会被标记。
In the first half of the month, roughly 60% of the daily HN lineup was AI-related or AI-generated, tapering off to ~50% as we approached the end of the month. This is up from 40% in February. 在 6 月上半月，HN 每日头条中约有 60% 是 AI 相关或 AI 生成的内容，随着月底临近，这一比例降至约 50%。这比 2 月份的 40% 有所上升。