> The argument I'm making is that if you care so much about standards you can always hone them yourself instead of taking the lazy way out of having an AI write for you.
It's pretty clear that in this case the use of AI is not a matter of laziness, but rather quality/consistency assurance. I use code formatters not because I'm too lazy to indent code myself, but because it helps guarantee that it's formatted consistently. I use a stud finder when mounting things to walls not because I'm too lazy to do the “knock on the wall” trick, but because the stud finder is more precise and reliable at it.
I don't use AI to edit my comments, but if I did, it would be not because I'm too lazy to check for all the things I want to avoid putting in my comments, but as an extra layer of assurance on top of what I've already trained myself to do.
> It's pretty clear that in this case the use of AI is not a matter of laziness, but rather quality/consistency assurance
But that's not something anybody wants of you in an informal context such as this (HN). It will flatten your voice and make you sound like a drone. We value a human voice.
Code is different. Outside of hobbies, code is not a form of self-expression. There's a reason why following your companies coding styles & practices is valued in software engineering. Companies value coders being interchangeable with each other, they do not want a "unique voice". I think it's completely unrelated to what we're discussing here.
“We” value mutual intelligibility. The manic ravings and rantings of a lunatic are also a “human voice”, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're of particular value.
> Code is different. Outside of hobbies, code is not a form of self-expression.
For the vast majority of people here, commenting on Hacker News is also a hobby. The comparison to code formatting is more relevant than you think.
> What are we even debating, then?
Just because I don't feel the need to use AI to edit my comments doesn't mean that's true of everyone. Seems pretty selfish of me to insist that “I don't need it therefore you shouldn't have it”.
It's pretty clear that in this case the use of AI is not a matter of laziness, but rather quality/consistency assurance. I use code formatters not because I'm too lazy to indent code myself, but because it helps guarantee that it's formatted consistently. I use a stud finder when mounting things to walls not because I'm too lazy to do the “knock on the wall” trick, but because the stud finder is more precise and reliable at it.
I don't use AI to edit my comments, but if I did, it would be not because I'm too lazy to check for all the things I want to avoid putting in my comments, but as an extra layer of assurance on top of what I've already trained myself to do.