> I want to be honest about what happened next, because it matters

I like the project but using Claude sure didn't improve this article.

Are y'all gonna register a complaint for each and every instance of an LLM written or enhanced article anywhere?

It's mainstreamed. Spare the rest of us.

If nobody complains, nothing changes. At the very least Claude's output should have been edited and improved, but it reads like it was mostly copy-paste.

I dislike one-shot LLM prose as much as the next person, but there's no chance this use case ever goes away. Writing is difficult and takes a long time. Using an LLM to write for you gets your message across with the least effort. It's here to stay. Our only hope is that the models simply start writing better.

> Writing is difficult and takes a long time.

It gets a lot less difficult when you don't outsource it to a chat bot at every opportunity. Communication matters. If you do it badly because you let a bot that can't write do it all for you people should complain. The fact that lots of people will do it doesn't mean that readers should lower their standards.

I'm never going to complain about people using AI to write their private documents, but if someone publishes something, explicitly for others to read, and what they published is annoying to read and that wasn't the goal of the "writer" they should probably know about it. Even if they never check the comments, those of us who were made to read that slop can commiserate with each other.

Sure, it's here to stay. But the least effort solution is often not the best one. I would also argue it gets the point across with the least effort on the writer's part, but the most on the reader's. LLM prose is not easy to read and often not interesting because we're all used to slop. And I like a little human touch. I don't know if LLMs will ever be able to replace the individual human style differences.

s/enhanced/diminished ... because it matters

It’s the lack of effort to make the AI write better that bothers me.

Exactly, there's nothing stopping someone from reading what it puts out and going "what? That doesn't belong there" and cleaning it up a little.

The critics never point this out though. They typically just find the first AI smell then proudly announce to everyone that they didn’t finish the article. It’s the new HN meta for securing upvotes with low effort.

I do generally agree though that the author should edit or rewrite completely the AI output since he clearly put a lot of effort into the thing he made itself.

It's hard to imagine people taking the time to give a bunch of detailed helpful notes and criticism about what the AI did poorly to a person who didn't even bother to do much more than copy/paste the shitty AI output in the first place.

We're not professional editors, and this isn't a forum for aspiring writers looking to improve, we're just insulted that someone published thousands of words they didn't put any effort into while expecting others to slog through their slop.

Yes it would indeed be much better to avoid the bike shedding completely.

Exactly, the whole discussion is about this guy's AI slop instead of what he did. It's ridiculous. On the other hand, it's kind of expected by now.

> The critics never point this out though. They typically just find the first AI smell then proudly announce to everyone that they didn’t finish the article.

I mean, I'm the "critic" that started this thread and my comment doesn't say that, so what exactly is your problem? If it were poor writing for any other reason would you have the same kneejerk defensive reaction that you have about poor AI writing?

What’s my problem? Your low effort Redditor tier updoot seeking behavior.

What do I think you should do? Just ignore it and let people who are interested in what the guy made have a discussion. If you are so keen to discuss AI use in blog posts, make a separate post about it and have an on-topic discussion rather than starting a circle jerk in every other post.

We've got to shame this shit until it stops. LLMs are great; don't use them to write for you. Especially not in the first fucking person.

lazy writing is always valid ground for criticism…

My dude, reading AI writing on a product page is not in the universe of being sexually assaulted.

I’m sorry you didn’t get what I was saying. Maybe one day you’ll realize what that mentality is.

That might be why they made a metaphor instead of saying the web page literally raped us.

It's worse.

Yes!

It's kind of insulting. Like they didn't take the time to write it but expect me to spend time reading it.

I think calling out AI is pretty 'mainstreamed' at this point, if that's our criteria.

How do those boots taste?

Are you going to register a complaint on every complaint about LLM prose? They aren't going away. Spare the rest of us.

Yes absolutely will combat spam comments until yall stfu or a rule changes

"The free Shield, rebuilt"

“That somebody opens it, and what they open matters.”

Good boys! You found the AI written parts!!! here's an upvote for you.

Might need a nose guard for you too!

This dude invented not one but multiple dog health care products ... with no animal product design background whatsoever! Then (with no business background) he started an entire company helping hundreds of dogs all over the world.

Maybe instead of expecting everyone to be good at everything, we cut this guy a little slack and let him use AI to help write?

I think it's possible to give someone their flowers for being a great innovator and also call them out for producing writing that's painful to read.

I didnt find it painful

Clearly, some readers did, given all of the similar posts on the HN thread.

It's also worth noting that the article has been edited in the last hour. Some section headers read a lot more clearly and naturally now (which is awesome!).

Nah, they’re just bandwagoning at the tier that they understand and engage with the content. It’s like why the lowest effort jokes get upvoted on Reddit. Same reason complaints about CSS get upvoted on this webshit centered forum.

You had me until the CSS bit

Exactly. This is far better than your usual AI slop...

And it’s for sick dogs, and he said he wasn’t even trying to monetize it

Like if we have a problem with this being vibe coded, we’ve got a problem guys

Yeah, didn't find it painful either

Absolutely.

But, did AI actually _help_ in this specific phrase? I think it's OK to point out the quirks (and even drawbacks) of AI, even if we generally support the underlying motions of the person using it.

Are managers not part of a delivery team?

My assumption is that every LLM-written article would just not have been written otherwise. That is a net good. It's also true that it's grating to read LLM-written prose.

Am I utterly mistaken or was LLM-written prose more tolerable when it was GPT-4o and Opus 3.x writing it?

It's all very impressive and heartwarming.

But that doesn't change that slop sucks to read.

no one's preventing him from using it, we're pointing out flaws with the tool in an effort to get people to improve

The AI didnt help him write. The AI wrote very annoying prose. Seemingly everyone was completely capable of writing long winded comments, rants, and rambles before AI. They can do it after too just fine.

Yeah, it's every paragraph.

Unnecessary comment. It is really heartwarming to see an individual do something in his spare time that helps 100s of being that can't speak for themselves.

I find it so much more annoying when it's on something that should be genuinely interesting - I just can't read this even though I do actually want to.

You don’t know that. He could be a terrible writer.

I'm OK with this, let's start by shitting on 100% Ai slop products and slop products with bad intentions first

I wish we could put the paw-litics aside and not be so snoot-y about the AI writing and focus on the awesomeness of this idea. Honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see it in re-tail. You’re barking up the right tree and I wish you success and a lot of kibble money.

Thank you for a great comment

Personally, comments like this are against the guidelines. Please either downvote and move on, or comment about the parts that are interesting and substantive.

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

> Find something interesting to respond to instead.

> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.

> Omit internet tropes.

It's not a shallow dismissal. Writing quality is core to the value of an article.

It's likely that but for LLMs, the article would not have been written. I'm glad it was written. It's also true that it's unpleasant to read LLM-written prose for those of us who have to read it all day for work.

Do you think your comment is a good critical comment that "teaches us something"? If not, it qualifies as a shallow dismissal according to these guidelines, even if it's not a shallow dismissal according some other definition or criteria.

I don't think it's shallow because writing quality isn't important, I think it's a shallow dismissal of the writing quality because it doesn't discuss anything interesting or substantive about the writing quality.

Also, what about the other guidelines? Comments should meet all of the guidelines, not just some of them. (I do get that some of these are borderline.)

My comment? Please review the username of the comment in question.

If you feel a given comment is not within community guidelines you are free to flag it. I do not believe that we agree about the substantive value of noting an article was written with the heavy assistance of an LLM. I usually look at comments prior to reading an article; it's an effective time-saving measure.

I do not accept your attempt to make a blanket ban on noting an article was LLM-written.

Where are you seeing that? I don't see the word honest anywhere on the page

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46094460 from 11 months ago.

My dog has a very smelly nose!

Pun notwithstanding, what a fun itch to scratch! A clever single-user solution becomes it's own industry. I'd love to repeat this sort of growth myself, and find such clever solutions to real world problems.

Canine discoid lupus erythematosus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_discoid_lupus_erythemat...

The idea is good and cute (the AI writing is a slog to read though). But I wince a bit at seeing a pit with something looking like a mouth guard at a glance, as if they're not scary enough already.

We rarely use a muzzle for our shepherd but the ironic part is people keep extra distance because it looks so menacing.

My 120# K9 trained Akita got run at by a 10# French bulldog because the owner of the Frenchie let her leash unroll and then lost control. Things happened. Now, my boy has to wear a muzzle on premises, because - got threats from the HOA. I covered the bills for the baby, it wasn't its fault, but I utterly despise small dog owners that don't think theirs need no training.

Pits and the like breeds are scary. My previous 130# male Akita was almost murdered by a 40# female Staffordshire Bull Terrier. All 4 legs were shredded, the neck too. He survived. I cross the street when I see one.

DLE, I had never heard of it. Something like lupus and it needs protection from the sun. One smart guy to come up with a simple solution.. Very good use of 3D printer.

Hmmm, something made to sit in direct sunlight shouldn’t be black or very dark.

Like dog noses?

Dog noses are attached to a large bag of water with a liquid cooling system, so they're not hot to the touch.

A chunk of plastic can easily get painfully hot to a sensitive piece of skin, like a dog nose.

What's the big risk though? Plastic has pretty low conductivity so the surface in the sun might get a little warm but the whole thing will take a long time to heat up. Same thing keeps it from being very dangerous to touch, plastic transmits the heat it has to your hand more slowly too. Plus most dog noses are already black so you're not even really changing the absorption of the area much. If the nose can carry away the heat of the sun directly hitting the nose skin it can do the same for it creeping through the plastic nose guard too.

It’s not a big risk, there’s just no reason for it to be near black.

Like car tires?

I love writing that uses acronyms and never defines them.

It’s pretty easy to figure out what DLE was about from the context clues in the article. Knowing that it means discoid lupus erythematosus and the detailed definition wouldn’t have added much imo. In fact I didn’t even care to look it up until I read your comment.

Sounds like someone just needs to spend more time keeping up with rare canine autoimmune disorders

Or you could print out an ASCII table and tape it to the wall so you don't forget DLE = ^P = $10 = CHR$(16) = Data Link Escape.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ASCII-Table-wide.svg

if you're referring to DLE, from the second paragraph:

> When she was diagnosed with DLE, discoid lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the skin on the nose and sunlight makes it worse

edit: ah, just saw a comment from the author indicating they added that post-hoc

AI written

“ I want to be honest about what happened next, because it matters: I never planned to sell it. I made it for Billie.”

I think there will be a market for video game styles armour for dogs

Did they really have to sensor the photos of a few stitches on a snout ?

Like, why ?

It is not censored, it is covered. There are many people who find images of wounds off-putting.

If you click the image it goes away.

It is not even a wound. This is just western internet people being hypersensitive

Ai article or not. Today I decided to look at the good side of life. Product solves a niche problem. Thumbs up.

Enabling more people to solve more problems is a great benefit to everyone, even people who don't like AI. I'm using AI to solve problems for me, and I hope more people continue this trend.

That's exactly what moves AI tech out of market frenzy to market synthesis

What do you mean by "market synthesis"? When I search online for that phrase, it just returns as a company name.

Hey, I've tried to respond to your comment twice now but it looks like the AI/LLM checks are overcapturing any sense of structured writing. So a little less structured. Carlotta Perez, an economist, wrote Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital in the early 2000s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Revolutions_and_.... The installation phase starts with "irruption" and ends with "frenzy" which I think think is where the market is now. Then comes the deployment phase of synergy/synthesis to maturity, where valuation of new tech realigns to productive capital. In between frenzy and synthesis is where the short term pain happens. It's related to the hype cycle but is distinct enough to call out.

----

Note - this comment is 100% written by a human. AI checkers or moderators, please do not remove.

The "@dang and other mods..." in your other comment probably won'tbe seen by them, I would suggest emailing them at hn@ycomb...

kids at hn@ycomb... don't give a shit

My guess is that it would mean "creating new markets"

It's more nuanced -- more "actually connected to productive capital"

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Revolutions_and_...

I wish AI solved the problem of writing like shit. It REALLY bothers me how bad AI writing is and I'm not at all negative about the technology itself. I love AI, I just don't like the side effect of all this garbage content being regurgitated on the internet right now.

I'd hope it doesn't get solved, because it's one of the few signals I have to the person behind the screen.

> I wish AI solved the problem of writing like shit.

Until it does, it falls on the human publishing that slop to polish it up.

This is exactly the type of niche service that modern technology enables. Without that tech (3D printing, the internet, AI) things like this are simply more likely to just not exist because it would be impossible to make the economics work.

This is a net gain all around.

AI didn't really help in making this at all just the article talking about it months later. They already did a write up on their own about a year back without clauding it up.

Author here. Thanks everyone for being mean, I mean that in the best way :)

Fair points. I’m a designer, not a writer, so I used an LLM to help write it. The story and the dogs are real. After reading the comments I removed the parts that felt off and defined DLE (discoid lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune skin condition made worse by sun).

My dog Billie has it, and that’s what started all this. I made the cover for her, shared it free, and it grew from there.

It's specifically against the guidelines to post LLM-generated comments here [1]. As for LLM-assisted articles on 3rd-party sites, we're more lenient about them because we can't always expect people to follow our guidelines on their own site, and sometimes the substance wins out even if an LLM is used to "polish" the writing. But you can see what happens when an article is posted that has obvious LLM-smell; the discussion ends up being much more about that than the article's content.

> I’m a designer, not a writer

Most people are not "writers" but anyone can write their own story in their own words, and it's always much more charming than the output of a text-generation tool, especially when the topic is something you did for your pet :)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#genai

FWIW, the headings are still very Claude-speak, and it's somehow more off-putting to read Claude writing in 1st person than in its usual persona

Wow, that is a great story! Really like how you used tech to treat a health issue. Keep up the good work!

I don't think you need to make it DLE exclusive. My dog gets fungal infections on his nose and this would probably help. Although TBH I haven't gone looking for solutions.

I would be concerned about the lead in 3D prints. Even if you take proper precautions (which is very difficult because it's the material in the extruder and filament) they are not food safe and easily grow bacteria.

Lead isn't a concern, it's at trace levels when using brass nozzles and steel nozzles are now pretty common (OP has a Bambu). That being said, bacteria should be a concern and these should probably be cleaned pretty often.

FWIW I read the whole article now, so can’t compare to before, but I never thought it was written using AI. Congrats on the product it’s really wonderful what you achieved.

Thanks - and congratulations. One question. What is this UV-sensitive filament, and does it really change color in both directions as quickly as the video shows?

Yes it does, pretty amazing tbh Just got a random one from AliExpress. nothing branded.

I would be concerned about the lead in 3d prints. They are not food safe.

Do napkin math on how much lead is actually in a 3d print. Then think about the exposure that actually translates to, since most of that is buried inside a print.

We're talking micrograms per kg with a brass nozzle, unless you're printing in an abrasive filament. Possibly less - nozzle wear with non-abrasive filaments is very minor. If you're using a steel nozzle... Well, besides the fact that your steel nozzle probably doesn't contain lead, you're looking at an order of magnitude less wear or better.

Or, look at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6530847/ for a worst case scenario.

Lead in 3d prints is not just overblown, but a total non-issue outside of a laboratory context.

Lead isn't the reason they're generally not food safe, it's the additives they use to make the plastics more printable.

Why are you concerned about the food safety of this though?

I've heard of 3D prints being not-food-safe for a host of reasons, but lead is a new one. How does lead get into the filament? Care to share an article?

Mostly from some nozzles with leaded brass components, but lead is probably very small component and I'm not sure is the main reason why something printed isn't food safe. Mostly I think it's not food safe because it's not really a traceable chain, has very high surface areas, lots of bacterial pockets, generally hard to determine if it's food safe or not.

But wrt to lead, it would mostly be in brass components

The bacterial pockets are the main reason I know of, and it doesn't seem like there's enough lead in the nozzle allow to really matter

It's not only the filament, but the extruder.

The CDC has some good info on 3D printers, but they don't mention food safety: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/publications/numbered/2024-103.htm...

Here is an article on the food side of things: https://spoolhound.com/food-safety-guide

Out of the random materials like ground seashells or exotic metals like tungsten I don't think anyone has ever made a lead-fill composite filament. And that is what I call a missed opportunity

I wouldn't attach it to the neck, when the head moves with respect to the neck the nose guard pushes, slides, pulls on the sensitive area.

Better to have some part hook at the back of the head or any bony protrusions on the sides or back of the head, perhaps in the vicinity of the ears.

Having owned many dogs and varying DME devices... I don't think that would work, dog would slip out of it easily. If you leave just a little slack the dog can move head without much consequence. Dog will adapt to it if it limits motion and it will likely be minor.

That would have to be a lot more custom fitted to the dog. It's not the best but the neck attachment is a lot easier. Also it seems to work just fine from the large amount of users it's gotten too, I bet the distance doesn't actually change that much.

I wonder if microplastics ingestion is a thing to be wary of.

Microplastics shouldn’t make the list of things to worry about here.

For one, we don’t really know how/why microplastics are bad, or how bad. If they have significant bad effects, the mechanism is slow and subtle, so unlikely to affect dogs (who, very sadly, just don’t live that long).

Second, the incremental increase in microplastics from this device would be very tiny compared to typical exposure estimates.

When you balance the very small risk against a tangible benefit, they answer is clear.

If it is, we should probably start by worrying about chew toys.

Yeah, you're probably right... at this point it'd probably be a drop in the ocean for any respectable city pooch lol

I wouldn't worry about that, but about bacteria colonies inside the print. Sure dogs already eat random (and literal) shit, but if it's placed on an already inflammation prone nose, maybe it should be a some special material. Bacteria don't grow on metals, maybe it can be some silver ion filament or maybe at least solid resin

Dogs likely don't live long enough for microplastics to be a big problem. We haven't seen an increase in cancers in dogs in recent years like we have with people.

They're main exposure to microplastics would be from toys, water, dishes, and low-quality food, anyway. This nose guard would be a small drop in the bucket.

> We haven't seen an increase in cancers in dogs in recent years like we have with people.

Some folks say we have, that it's still similar to the cancer rate in humans and higher than the cancer rate seen in animals that aren't pets. https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/health/dogs-cancer-partner

although it also seems like it's not something that's been being tracked very well https://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/evidence-based-medici...

You sold 500 at $20 a piece? That's $10K. Not a whole lot of moonies these days.

Can you build a viable business against such low sales?

Wasn't part of the point of the post was that this is a passion project? It's not a viable business.

> I designed a nose guard for my dog and gave it away.

poor dog

> Now 500 dogs wear one (snoutcover.com)

enterprising dog