Translation

Ask HN: How to manage AI spam in inbox?

A Hacker News user asks how to manage an influx of AI-generated spam emails. The discussion thread seeks automated solutions for detecting and filtering these messages from inboxes.

Background

- "AI spam" refers to unsolicited emails generated by large language models (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini). Unlike traditional spam (broken English, obvious scams), AI spam uses fluent, personalized-sounding language that bypasses conventional filters. - This is a growing problem because AI makes it cheap to mass-produce unique, convincing emails at scale. - Most email filters (Gmail, Outlook, SpamAssassin) were trained on human-written spam and don't reliably catch AI-generated messages. - The Ask HN format is a community Q&A on Hacker News (Y Combinator's tech forum). The poster is asking for practical, user-level solutions — e.g., email aliases, challenge-response systems, or custom rules. - No reliable, widely available tool for automatically detecting AI-written emails exists yet; current approaches rely on sender reputation or manual review.

The 100,000 whys of AI
3.0
The author describes frustrating arguments with fellow techies about whether it's possible to distinguish between human-written and AI-generated text, framing this as one of the most painful recurring debates in tech circles.
A lot of the emails I get from founders are now written in a hard-hitting journalistic style. I know they're written by AI, because no founder ever wr...
2.0
Paul Graham notes that many founder emails now use a hard-hitting journalistic style, which he attributes to AI because founders never wrote that way before. He observes that once an email is identified as AI-written, it's difficult not to ignore it.
Quoting Paul Graham
1.5
Paul Graham says he can tell when emails from founders are written by AI, noting a hard-hitting journalistic style that didn't exist before. He states he has never finished reading an email signed by a human but written by AI, as it feels like being lied to and makes him think less of the author.
We don’t see it, but we see it every day. The aesthetic of the era is code.
1.0
A tweet argues that the defining aesthetic of the current era is computer code, responding to a comment about the century lacking a distinct artistic movement. It suggests code is an invisible yet omnipresent visual and cultural force shaping modern life.
Another annoying thing about getting emails people have used AIs to write for them is that they're usually longer than they'd have written by themselv...
0.5
Paul Graham complains that emails written with AI assistance tend to be overly long, filled with paragraphs of plausible-sounding but unnecessary text, unlike the more concise versions people would naturally write themselves.

Ask HN: How to manage AI spam in inbox?

Background

Related stories

The 100,000 whys of AI

A lot of the emails I get from founders are now written in a hard-hitting journalistic style. I know they're written by AI, because no founder ever wr...

Quoting Paul Graham

We don’t see it, but we see it every day. The aesthetic of the era is code.

Another annoying thing about getting emails people have used AIs to write for them is that they're usually longer than they'd have written by themselv...