There's no definitive proof that the original post was AI, and it sounds very much in line with DoorDash and Uber's ethics (or lack thereof), so I'm still inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the original post.
> The Verge put the original 586-word Reddit post through several free online AI detectors, in addition to Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude. The results were mixed: Copyleaks, GPTZero, Pangram, Gemini, and Claude all pegged it as likely AI-generated, but ZeroGPT and QuillBot both reported it as human-written. ChatGPT played it down the middle.
Why does anyone, let alone a journalist, trust these? They are worse than useless.
+1,000,000. Journalist would be an inflated title given this reporters understanding of what LLMs can and can't do. I'd label them a blogger, commenter, or "enthusiast" given their understanding of the area they're covering.
It’s funny that the Verge thinks this is the AI scam, when literally all of Reddit is a massive AI scam and you can’t miss it if you scroll the front page for more than 10 minutes and realize the comments/upvotes/content don’t track and aren’t even remotely organic.
I’m not sure if the Verge has been living under a rock, but like 80% of social media posts are rewritten by AIs these days, by the OP themselves. Heck, even a large chunk of articles and blogs too. Without making a judgement either way, that does not mean the story itself is fake.
Hacker News fakes posts later ( AKA the famous Dropbox post )
The best web archive is 22 hours in (.is is 2 hours with same top) and the top believes the post. Nihilist and a NPC failure to understand tech and industry[1] FTW
[1] Both programming and business logic are rubbish in the post. A childhish view of the world from people who have never been there.
[edit] If Hacker News can show posts archived after they drop off page x they should do that.
If Hacker News wants to pretend they are archiving history show an accessible frozen copy. If we can't delete old posts because the history matters, this does too.
It wouldn't hurt to watch voting real time either over 24-48 hours. This is scrape-able if collected real time. Data project left to reader. No idea if you'd see anything. India votes different to the USA, you might see that.
"A developer for a ‘major food delivery app’ says the ‘algorithms are rigged against you."
"There’s some debate as to whether the claims are as bad as the OP makes them seem, but it seems like there’s general agreement that the gist of the post is legit."
And, yet, they don't even mention it in their original post. They haven't issued a correction. Isn't this journalism 101?
Focusing on the AI content generation aspect of this is disappointing to me, since those tools are fuzzy at best and even if the post was AI generated, it isn't necessarily a red flag since the user could be trying to disguise their writing style.
There are plenty of other signs this story is likely fake. The author claiming to be posting from a library on New Years' Day (most government buildings are closed) and was responding over 10 hours on the account. He's using a throwaway and a "burner laptop" at the library, but he also says he put his two weeks' notice in yesterday (also odd that this is on New Years' Eve) which would make identifying him trivial.
Fake stories get to the front page of Reddit every day, I wish journalists were pointing out the actual signs not to trust something to act as a better example.
Finding non-agenda driven, unbiased truth on Reddit is comparable to finding a needle in a haystack. It's a dumping ground of misinformation and a playground for bots.
A side note to this: a lot of the longer highly upvoted Reddit posts in subs like /AskReddit have clearly been written with AI help. The three parallel element structure with a a splashy conclusion sentence for synthesis is a dead giveaway.
The Verge's article here is the least compelling. They report it with the same confidence and style as their original article when the Reddit post first made waves.
I think the telling part is that so many people believed it without questioning.
Like there's the oft-debunked "factoid" that says that the Windows Start Menu is written in react native... While the fact itself may be false, the fact that so many people readily believed it says a lot about the start menu.
If someone were to make a similar claim about something like HN was built in react then almost everyone here would instantly fact check.
24 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 48.5 ms ] threadhttps://archive.ph/1XUka
I'm a developer for a major food delivery app
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46461563
There was no investigation, they just asked an AI and published what the AI said.
The best web archive is 22 hours in (.is is 2 hours with same top) and the top believes the post. Nihilist and a NPC failure to understand tech and industry[1] FTW
https://web.archive.org/web/20260103035501/https://news.ycom...
[1] Both programming and business logic are rubbish in the post. A childhish view of the world from people who have never been there.
[edit] If Hacker News can show posts archived after they drop off page x they should do that.
If Hacker News wants to pretend they are archiving history show an accessible frozen copy. If we can't delete old posts because the history matters, this does too.
It wouldn't hurt to watch voting real time either over 24-48 hours. This is scrape-able if collected real time. Data project left to reader. No idea if you'd see anything. India votes different to the USA, you might see that.
Yes, it was: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/853018/a-developer-f...
"A developer for a ‘major food delivery app’ says the ‘algorithms are rigged against you."
"There’s some debate as to whether the claims are as bad as the OP makes them seem, but it seems like there’s general agreement that the gist of the post is legit."
And, yet, they don't even mention it in their original post. They haven't issued a correction. Isn't this journalism 101?
There are plenty of other signs this story is likely fake. The author claiming to be posting from a library on New Years' Day (most government buildings are closed) and was responding over 10 hours on the account. He's using a throwaway and a "burner laptop" at the library, but he also says he put his two weeks' notice in yesterday (also odd that this is on New Years' Eve) which would make identifying him trivial.
Fake stories get to the front page of Reddit every day, I wish journalists were pointing out the actual signs not to trust something to act as a better example.
Try with some more media criticality next time.
...Congratulations, clanker!
I am irrationally irritated by this.
I recommend reading https://www.platformer.news/fake-uber-eats-whisleblower-hoax... instead. It offers better reasoning, and an honest reflection about how close they were to getting taken in by the original Reddit post.
Like there's the oft-debunked "factoid" that says that the Windows Start Menu is written in react native... While the fact itself may be false, the fact that so many people readily believed it says a lot about the start menu.
If someone were to make a similar claim about something like HN was built in react then almost everyone here would instantly fact check.