Which users may have changed the most since 2023?

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This tool looks at the fingerprints of HN users, comparing the similarity of their writing style before 2023 with after 2023.

It uses hashed-word cosine similarity. Only users with comments before Jan 2023 (mass adoption of LLMs) are counted. Users must be active users, and must have at least three 6 month blocks before and after 2023 where they have written more than 500 words.
It's going to be flawed and inaccurate and simple. I find it interesting, but please do not assume anything about these users below!

From the top 100 users, the range was 88 - 54 / 100. The general picture with some closer examination of these accounts is that they do not seem to show LLM usage, but more like a change in how they comment and use the site.

Some reasons for change:

Change in topics. Since 2023 was a watershed moment, the topics that were discussed on HN also changed. The vocabulary we use when talking about LLMs have changed the overall vocabulary on the site. It could be that any changes before and after may reflect a change in topics.

Change in usage: Some types of comments, like the replies under "Ask HN: Who Wants To Be Hired" posts are formatted differently than usual comments and people will use different words. So if a user talked normally before and is now just using it to find jobs, it would probably show this change. I also saw similar things with Show HN's. Users also appear to be posting to hire people where before they may have been commenting normally and vice versa. As users age and change careers what they post and comment about may also change.

Additionally many of the top users are changed their usage into being helpful users, showing duplication submissions, previous comments, links to archive services, messages about the guidelines etc.

Some additional criticism of the methodology:
There was more variation when the threshold for the number of words (tokens) in a time period was reduced, and this also lead to more "active" periods. These additional time periods had less activity and so the words written in these times would carry more weight. I decided 500 words in 6 months was a good compromise, but it might be smoothing over actual differences.
Probably more change will be calculated if there are less sample buckets - if the user signed up in 2022 and only posted a few times before and since? Maybe instead of 6 months periods, we could look comments for each year. Or perhaps looking at changes over smaller time periods could show better patterns?
The limit of 500 words per 6 months may filter out some LLM usage by users posting many small comments, so it's biased to the more wordy users.
Many of the users below had low numbers of 6 month periods. Changing the cut off time from Jan 2023 to some later date will probably show different results.

A "period" is either the 6 months at the beginning of the year or the 6 months at the end of the year.
name Number of pre-23 periods Number of post-23 periods before '23 words after '23 words raw distance after 2023 similarity score difference from before 2023
gnabgib 6 8 18970 227789 0.45985387788952936 54.015 45.985
mjgs 3 6 18184 9848 0.38104411415347084 61.896 38.104
bill_duckduckgo 5 7 2706 6663 0.3773964538818433 62.26 37.74
ChrisArchitect 20 8 58227 262497 0.37189156877152596 62.811 37.189
sctb 11 5 120386 7265 0.3703679122228696 62.963 37.037
lylo 12 4 12369 4213 0.35427555645179265 64.572 35.428
jamesjyu 17 5 18779 3633 0.3354004765351507 66.46 33.54
protoduction 4 5 11734 4824 0.33506570389483814 66.493 33.507
pseudolus 9 6 25506 7006 0.3148283788711367 68.517 31.483
neonate 10 5 41314 5983 0.31207506621777337 68.792 31.208
jborden13 4 6 4658 5981 0.3069357936860305 69.306 30.694
anon1094 5 3 5238 4852 0.28904861688806294 71.095 28.905
helsinki 4 4 2569 3317 0.28849985371888387 71.15 28.85
desaiguddu 6 6 5348 5799 0.2709470953034353 72.905 27.095
devKnight 3 4 3751 2945 0.2667435595714547 73.326 26.674
CaioFer 5 7 11675 8112 0.2646610549897017 73.534 26.466
PanMan 10 3 14290 3310 0.25655238200516695 74.345 25.655
jmmcd 17 3 20522 3573 0.24817642204797907 75.182 24.818
timgl 3 5 2792 3519 0.2481491686460514 75.185 24.815
sidmitra 21 3 39690 2985 0.24771888185226532 75.228 24.772
rossng 6 5 6376 6900 0.23976430081418898 76.024 23.976
dserban 11 3 11164 3598 0.23002932991832958 76.997 23.003
woodrow 10 3 13613 1684 0.2264649374875638 77.354 22.646
pinewurst 16 7 43385 13440 0.21318643249376468 78.681 21.319
gwn7 9 4 15526 3686 0.21120754355988758 78.879 21.121
deivid 3 6 1796 6390 0.2046838354800553 79.532 20.468
Fleetio 7 4 4961 2642 0.20054666906124952 79.945 20.055
djedr 5 3 17529 1979 0.20027822840320297 79.972 20.028
jrowley 13 4 25264 2531 0.19363065659464573 80.637 19.363
dcsourcegraph 3 5 2002 4736 0.18858323602497573 81.142 18.858
momentmaker 4 3 4731 2663 0.18677296752315453 81.323 18.677
icy 3 5 3164 4151 0.18490240071470343 81.51 18.49
skytreader 9 8 39314 12599 0.18111194360597993 81.889 18.111
meredydd 14 4 36978 2853 0.17640794214447986 82.359 17.641
tebbers 3 5 2052 4558 0.17253020735524383 82.747 17.253
thegeekpirate 7 3 5571 2312 0.17190147223554397 82.81 17.19
HoyaSaxa 13 3 18109 2294 0.17095544745015412 82.904 17.096
dsissitka 5 4 5648 4176 0.16936309014834872 83.064 16.936
andreyvit 3 5 2069 4780 0.16734115813386796 83.266 16.734
finkin1 19 6 19841 5252 0.16072776540498424 83.927 16.073
dazbradbury 17 5 35354 6085 0.16051109078432635 83.949 16.051
myroon5 8 5 8079 4084 0.1591090794349218 84.089 15.911
mlejva 6 5 6290 6321 0.15850529369842092 84.149 15.851
wyc 13 4 26762 5122 0.1555346103597791 84.447 15.553
rawling 3 7 4811 9237 0.15135462848815096 84.865 15.135
ag_user123 7 7 9077 7518 0.15125537682182766 84.874 15.126
wizee 3 4 2212 4328 0.15088921242797337 84.911 15.089
rasikjain 7 8 10888 12646 0.1491977273438475 85.08 14.92
robomex 6 8 5476 10722 0.14699466437806996 85.301 14.699
donclark 8 3 8876 1777 0.1442197920249969 85.578 14.422
vincent_s 3 4 2801 4680 0.14352957704915736 85.647 14.353
WalterGR 22 4 129238 19838 0.14303039926386696 85.697 14.303
dennisy 3 4 2187 3565 0.14296510392170791 85.703 14.297
gtani 21 3 72107 2436 0.14276920917625413 85.723 14.277
amacneil 5 6 8284 6791 0.13838050591069073 86.162 13.838
Technetium 3 3 2002 1961 0.13615164829233162 86.385 13.615
vgt 8 3 21003 2585 0.13538391452091525 86.462 13.538
csbartus 11 4 21043 4684 0.13517690858844977 86.482 13.518
abelanger 3 6 2414 16930 0.13373785749973022 86.626 13.374
howard941 10 6 46740 12227 0.13321490819691362 86.679 13.321
ianopolous 10 3 9544 2181 0.13243244616192185 86.757 13.243
quadrature 6 4 8727 3603 0.1319439456929239 86.806 13.194
Redeker_15_Beep 3 7 4161 8841 0.1302474622051908 86.975 13.025
AngeliqueB 5 7 8196 7966 0.1300459959910698 86.995 13.005
navane 4 8 4629 18967 0.12724180261210616 87.276 12.724
james_impliu 4 3 5433 2158 0.12625921709765509 87.374 12.626
alasano 10 3 13802 8257 0.1251907973971752 87.481 12.519
dm03514 4 3 3704 4160 0.12472123183557371 87.528 12.472
this2shallPass 9 3 8217 2699 0.12409937364999646 87.59 12.41
spitfire 27 4 73545 7049 0.12376023181535611 87.624 12.376
konz 6 8 4813 8176 0.12239559556751012 87.76 12.24
espeed 16 3 109717 2913 0.12210622013738437 87.789 12.211
michallech 5 6 5312 6534 0.12204095601989007 87.796 12.204
jwilk 13 5 61581 8552 0.1215900266372435 87.841 12.159
olieidel 6 4 5545 5074 0.12099085289562095 87.901 12.099
artpar 3 3 3705 3134 0.1199494710296044 88.005 11.995
gilli 11 5 10546 5198 0.11973467867040966 88.027 11.973
thecolorblue 13 3 9303 2828 0.1197346040016799 88.027 11.973
ellisd 7 5 10614 12140 0.11843275287984778 88.157 11.843
SupremumLimit 6 3 5676 1868 0.11831702776301878 88.168 11.832
Anon84 14 6 27587 4966 0.11829201924869748 88.171 11.829
nigeltao 3 3 3085 2741 0.11828451706190035 88.172 11.828
fooster 3 3 1770 3388 0.1181164690816302 88.188 11.812
NaOH 14 7 14819 17780 0.11787814802640939 88.212 11.788
nastya_geller 3 6 2311 5381 0.11764921975038023 88.235 11.765
evaneykelen 3 4 1563 3506 0.11751444723172266 88.249 11.751
luizfzs 3 3 2232 2245 0.11651880940810533 88.348 11.652
protonmail 4 3 7710 11703 0.11589018648880589 88.411 11.589
shulu 3 3 2820 3396 0.11549239432394565 88.451 11.549
Snild 3 3 2641 3232 0.11457184206434345 88.543 11.457
tylerchilds 4 6 3324 11683 0.11434413704559931 88.566 11.434
totemandtoken 3 4 6129 2737 0.11326619917848568 88.673 11.327
uallo 4 3 3954 1916 0.11305544296969394 88.694 11.306
markab21 4 3 3152 1807 0.11230708437530268 88.769 11.231
mrtracy 3 3 2411 2227 0.11229228843125716 88.771 11.229
Soupy 3 3 1637 2578 0.11204411233442202 88.796 11.204
rtfeldman 17 5 30697 4736 0.11164581090031755 88.835 11.165
97-109-107 4 3 3086 2344 0.1114387695482153 88.856 11.144
_acco 3 6 2663 4922 0.11075153280819916 88.925 11.075
izyda 3 4 4296 4617 0.11035209689869996 88.965 11.035