Simon Willison describes a method for profiling Hacker News users by feeding their last 1,000 comments into an LLM like Claude Opus. The technique leverages the open Algolia API to fetch comment data and uses AI to generate surprisingly accurate user profiles. While effective, the author notes it feels invasive and demonstrates the method with his own profile.
Background
Hacker News is a popular social news website focused on technology and startups, with a community known for its technical discussions. The Algolia API provides public access to its comment data.
- Source
- Simon Willison
- Published
- Mar 22, 2026 at 07:59 AM
- Score
- 5.0 / 10