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Do you think that AI-generated comments make communities like Product Hunt a better place?
We've seen a lot of growth in AI comment generators lately – auto-creating comments and replies based on available info. Do you think apps like these are positive or detrimental to community-focused platforms like Product Hunt?
Fwiw, we're aware that many folks are already choosing to use these kinds of services on Product Hunt. We're actively working on ways to address it, but I'm curious how our community feels about this type of engagement.
Please vote (and explain your thoughts)!
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Chris Sarca
I want a community with REAL human beings behind their accounts.
If I wanted to chat randomly with bots I would've done that elsewhere.
The whole idea behind this community is to get feedback, share REAL experiences, and learn from others, besides promoting your product.
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@chris_sarca exactly. to me it totally defeats the purpose of having a comment section to begin with. It strips away the human experience
@roshen_earnn Agreed! 🔥
Why everyone talking about AI and forget the border line? Where human need and AI need, it's different context.
I tried using ChatGPT for comments, but I found that they lacked personality and essence. We often prioritize quantity over quality. Perhaps we are expecting too much from AI, and it should be treated as a tool rather than a substitute for human interaction.
@laurentiu_cotet Yeah，totally agree with you. As a non-native english speaker, AI tools could make my engagements in PH communities much easier. However, they're just tools to help me express my thoughts to a wider world.
@laurentiu_cotet Asked ChatGPT for a reply to your comment. Here is what "it?" said -> "I completely understand your point of view. While AI language models like ChatGPT are capable of generating responses quickly and efficiently, they do not possess the same level of personality and emotional intelligence as human beings.
It's important to remember that AI is a tool that can assist in many tasks, including language generation, but it should not be seen as a complete substitute for human interaction. The human touch is often necessary for creating meaningful and impactful conversations.
As with any technology, it's important to use AI in the right context and not expect it to replace human interaction entirely. By recognizing its limitations and strengths, we can use AI as a tool to enhance our communication and productivity, rather than relying on it exclusively."
@laurentiu_cotet @dipak_sisodiya impressive. I was looking for where the ai generated comment ends and where your human-generated comment starts for a long time.
@laurentiu_cotet @inc_gemoo Me too!!! I am the same as you. Besides, you've made a good product. Just go for it.
@laurentiu_cotet @inc_gemoo Absolutely! AI tools can definitely help bridge the language barrier and expand our reach. But at the end of the day, it's the quality of our thoughts and ideas that truly matter. Keep on expressing yourself!
Product Hunt is a very tech-savvy community. Everyone here knows how to use ChatGPT so there is absolutely no point in automating replies with it.
In my opinion, people here are looking for a community with real makers and marketers. We can all go and use ChatGPT directly when needed.
@make_mhe I completely agree! There is certainly a need for ChatGPT but not in a community like this.
I haven't used AI-generated comments before, but if I did, I would use them for idea generation more than anything. Sometimes my brain might have a hard time coming up with a comment (maybe I'm just really tired or I am multi-tasking) so using AI to give me a jumpstart would be a huge help. But I would still edit/re-write the comment so that it actually comes from me and not a robot.
@heleana Makes sense to me. Use it as a tool, not as a replacement for what you want to say
Wow, I'm really grateful that you kickstarted this conversation! It's already proving to be incredibly insightful and educational. I'm excited to see what kind of valuable ideas and suggestions will come from everyone's participation. Let's keep the momentum going!
Now tell me, do you really like this AI-generated comment?
When it comes to commenting on a product launch, the most helpful thing for the launchers is to receive feedback from actual users who have tried out their app. Comments like "Congrats on the launch" are nice, but they don't really provide any valuable insights. Unfortunately, some people leave these kinds of comments without even giving the tool a try. Maybe they're hoping to gain some followers, who knows?
@naveed_rehman Yep, agreed. I think on many platforms (not just PH), there's a perception that interacting *more* (regardless of quality) will inevitably lead to additional followers/engagement that you can then utilize when you "really" want to engage later down the line.
@naveed_rehman I completely agree! Comments should be focused on providing valuable feedback to the launchers, not just generic congratulations. Let's keep the conversation going and help improve these products!
I have been familiar with Product Hunt for several years and have occasionally browsed the site to discover new apps. However, I recently became a part of the community and I must admit, I was somewhat disappointed with the discussions.
I think my expectations differed greatly from what I've found. In fact, I had considered posting a question similar to this yesterday. While I don't believe that all AI-generated content is bad, it seems that the majority of comments within the community misuse the tech. While there may be legitimate comments that I haven't noticed, some are quite obvious. For instance, comments on PH launches that boast about an app's ability to manage leads, only to find out that it is a tracker for rocket launches.
Overall, I had hoped to find more meaningful discussions, but I have found that the launch conversations are heavily saturated with meaningless comments and / or spam marketing, some of which is obviously generated by AI.
That said, I've enjoyed browsing the site regardless so it's not all bad. 😁 It's good to know that you guys are aware of the situation and actively thinking about it.
@bcmcq Yeah this is part of the problem. Everyone "says" they're using it to help 'kickstart ideas' but what we've seen in practice is mostly obvious 1-click/growth hack style usage.
Authentic Humans should be reviewing products. If we replace all humans and “couldn’t be bothered by writing a comment,”how do we help the community then? We may as well just have AI review all apps, and write reviews so that other AI can use the apps. What good are humans if we aren’t using and reviewing products. I don’t think this community was created so that machines could use the apps showcased. And the key word here is community. A community is defined by the quality of its membership. And if that membership is comprised of AI or bots, then inherently it’s a system and not a community.
@nvspmv I completely agree! Authentic human reviews bring value to the community and enhance the product experience. Let's keep the focus on human interaction and feedback.
Yep, also had that thought. AI can help you polish your grammar and wording, but from my experience, you can almost always see the difference between AI vs. Human-generated content, especially in a small formats like comments. So, the whole concept of AI-generated comments becomes pointless.
Even ChatGPT with all its power creates generic content without much personality behind it. And it’s good for some use cases when speed matters more than the quality of created content.
But in a long distance and in real communities quality always beat quantity :)
☝️ All of those are AI-generated comments 👇 This is the only real one (trust me)
Jokes aside, this will be a problem once the quality of those comments become indistinguishable from the real ones. It's quite possible that we'll see fine-tuned tools that can write time-relevant, insightful and emotional comments in the nearest future.
And this is probably fine, as long as these comments bring real value and are not just keyword-stuffed spam. Someone spent their time and money employing AI to write a good comment that is useful to a human user. Sounds like a good thing.
We wight need to rethink the verification and reputation systems in place though. There should be something ensuring that the community dynamics benefit the human users of the platform (sorry bots, you'll have your own ProductHunt in the future, leave this one to us)
@dbanisimov Totally agree about verification and reputation. We have some more changes coming soon, but in the meantime we've just added LinkedIn verification to user profiles to help add signal to who might be more trustworthy.
@irina_haupt and I talked about this before! It's like cat-fishing on thoughts instead of looks. Chat-fishing?
@gracehur thinking back on our conversation makes me giggle! @kylefrost I definitely see the pros and cons. At this point, it's sometimes still quite obvious what's AI-generated and what's not, but that'll definitely change. For the better? I am not sure yet. But it will also open exciting new doors!
Top Hunter
The formality and wordiness of generated comments makes them less appealing and out of place on Product Hunt.
One [obviously] AI-generated comment can erode trust and interest in all the rest of the comments on a given post, and so they definitely represent risk.
That said, AI editing tools that improve clarity, increase terseness, and help people create more muscular prose can be a net benefit.
Thus, I'm in the middle — and generally if the engagement is high quality, additive, and shared from a place of integrity, _how_ the content is produced is somewhat less important. But if AI comment generation is used simply to grow karma or artificially boost engagement, then that should be against the community guidelines.
As it is, some human commenters copy and paste (or have a script?) the same comment (or a similar variant) everyday, on every product — just creating noise. That kind of engagement is also unnecessary.
Perhaps Product Hunt could invest more in co-moderation tools so we can improve the quality and insightfulness of discourse across Product Hunt?
I know that comment badges and Comment Prompts are meant to help with that, but that's on the Maker side. Perhaps more tools (e.g. community choice selections? or "Flag as AI generated"?) beyond upvotes could help?
@chrismessina you can now flag as AI using the 'report' button on launch comments "Artificially generated (e.g. ChatGPT)"
@chrismessina @kylefrost If a reply is reported as 'Artificially generated', will it be deleted or are there any other penalties for the user?
I think using AI tools for comments goes against all the principles of building online communities.
In my opinion, AI-generated comments have the potential to enhance the volume of comments and interactions on online platforms, it is important to balance this with the need for genuine, human-driven engagement and feedback.
Rather than seeing AI as a replacement for human connection, we need to view it as a tool.
I think AI has a place on PH, but the main issue is that most people using AI are just copy pasting from ChatGPT, so overall, it actually ruins my experience.
If you're going to use ChatGPT, please be more creative rather than just copy pasting!
The biggest problem I have with it is that it breaks the connection between response length and effort.
Before AI generated comments if you wrote a block of words I at least knew you'd invested time and effort in preparing it (unless it was obvious copypasta) - and so I'd gladly invest time and effort in reading what you wrote.
Now there's no longer a connection between response length and effort - it's going to put people off reading a more thorough response - which in turn is going to put people off writing one.
The only way I can see to handle this is to let the community moderate itself - i.e. downvotes on comments.
In my ideal world PH would keep a record of that downvote / upvote ratio, and every user could configure a threshold below which they don't even see the post. i.e I might choose to only see comments from users with a high upvote ratio - automatically filtering out those that the community collectively has marked as too negative for whatever reason.
Personal preference is people -driven engagement including comments. LinkedIn has started testing AI powered articles and encourages people to build off the article by commenting throughout sections of it. I don’t mind that approach as the article serves as a writing prompt for unique perspectives.