OK, everyone is (rightly) bringing up that relatively small but really glaringly prominent AI boyfriend subreddit.
But I think a lot more people are using LLMs for relationship surrogates than that (pretty bonkers) subreddit would suggest. Character AI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character.ai) seems quite popular, as do the weird fake friend things in Meta products, and Grok’s various personality mode and very creepy AI girlfriends.
I find this utterly bizarre. LLMs are peer coders in a box for me. I care about Claude Code, and that’s about it. But I realize I am probably in the vast minority.
I remembered it being higher, but you are correct. All “technical help” (coding + data analysis + math) is 7.5%, with coding only being 4.2% as of June 2025 [0]. Note that there is a separate (sub)category of seeking information -> specific information that’s at 18.3%, I presume this could include design and architecture questions that don’t involve code, but I could be wrong.
Have you tried the relatively recent Personalities feature? I wonder if that makes a difference.
(I have no idea. LLMs are infinite code monkeys on infinite typewriters for me, with occasional “how do I evolve this Pokémon’ utility. But worth a shot.)
Oh, well let me get in my sub-$30,000 Model S, with a swappable battery and full-self-driving capabilities, and take a fully automated trip to the Hyperloop downtown so I can catch a quick ride out to O’Hare so I can fly out to watch a successful Starship launch…
…oh wait. I can’t. Because for all his successes, Musk has also sowed quite a lot of bullshit that has gone precisely nowhere.
Just like to point out Hyperloop wasn’t intended for local transportation and isn’t a Musk company, just some BOE speculation (BON?) that others have pursued.
> so I can fly out to watch a successful Starship launch
Not just watch a launch, but go to O'Hare to launch and go to Sydney in ~30min. In September 2017 they said we'd be flying Earth-to-Earth on a BFR last year.
And in Musk’s case, “longer” means “abandoned”. Like the cheap model 3. Or the Hyperloop. Or swappable batteries. Or X as an everything app that includes banking.
In everyone else’s case too. This was supposed to be a Startup News site. Instagram was supposed to be a way to check into cool places in your neighbourhood and see who was around.
Is there enough of new blood on HN? For me it was the best place, my favorite website, when I was entering startup scene. Loved it. I don't think a lot of young founders I know ever go here...
While this place has always been attractive to people building startups, back in the day (my original account is from 2009) "Hacker" News was much more about Hackers. Most people posting here had read "On Lisp", respected Paul Graham as a programmer and were enthusiastic about programming and solving problems above all else.
I'm honestly curious how many people that visit HN today even know what a "y combinator" is, and I have a pretty reasonable guess as to how many have implemented it for fun (though probably the applicative order version).
Even with search mode, I’ve had some hilarious hallucinations.
This was during the Gemini 2.5 era, but I got some just bonkers results looking for Tears of the Kingdom recipes. Hallucinated ingredients, out-of-nowhere recipes, and transposing Breath of the Wild recipes and effects into Tear of the Kingdom.
Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft all have a very confusing product naming strategy where it’s all lumped under Gemini/ChatGPT/Copilot, and the individual product names are not memorable and really quite obscure. (What does Codex do again?)
Nano Banana doesn’t tell you what the product does, but you sure remember the name. It really rolls off the tongue, and it looks really catchy on social media.
That doesn’t reflect my (I would say extensive) experience at this point, nor does it reflect the benchmarks. (I realize benchmarks have issues.)
Are you using Claude as an agent in VSCode or via Claude Code, or are you asking questions in the web interface? I find Claude is the best model when it’s working with a strongly typed language with a verbose linter and compiler. It excels with Go and TypeScript in Cursor.
I have used it for GDScript, C++, Java, and other more general questions.
Specifically, comparing it to other LLMs responses ESPECIALLY after incremental narrowing by prompt. Claud seems to randomly change approaches and even ignore context to the point you get the same circular issues you see in Copilot (do A because B is bad, then do B because A is bad or worse ignore everything before and do C because it's nominal). It seems more primitive in my sessions from the last time I used it (for a couple days) ~45 days ago.
But I think a lot more people are using LLMs for relationship surrogates than that (pretty bonkers) subreddit would suggest. Character AI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character.ai) seems quite popular, as do the weird fake friend things in Meta products, and Grok’s various personality mode and very creepy AI girlfriends.
I find this utterly bizarre. LLMs are peer coders in a box for me. I care about Claude Code, and that’s about it. But I realize I am probably in the vast minority.
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