Hacker News Discusses AI Use in Show HN Projects

Summary

A Hacker News discussion asks whether projects made with AI are acceptable in Show HN posts. Commenters generally say AI-assisted projects are fine, but low-quality output that the author has not reviewed or understood is not. One participant also says bots should not be used to post or comment on Hacker News. The debate centers on the difference between AI assistance and “AI slop”: projects become less worthwhile when their creators cannot explain the code, discuss how it was made, or answer questions about it. Commenters describe usefulness or originality as a possible threshold, while noting that simply reimplementing familiar software is less compelling. The thread also points to the purpose of Show HN: giving others something they can try, discuss, and provide feedback on. It acknowledges that some technically informed projects can use AI in a focused way without being examples of vibe coding. The original poster says they use AI to speed up development but only accept code they understand, and compares this distinction with AI-assisted prototypes built by founders.