Overview
This article demonstrates how to extract and analyze Hacker News user comments to create detailed psychological and professional profiles using AI. The author shows that feeding 1,000 comments to an LLM creates startlingly accurate personal profiles, revealing work habits, technical interests, and even security concerns.
The Breakdown
- The Algolia Hacker News API allows easy extraction of any user’s complete comment history with open CORS headers, making it accessible from web browsers
- Simple web tools can fetch up to 1,000 comments per user and format them for easy copying into LLMs like Claude
- AI models can analyze comment patterns to reveal detailed professional profiles including work style, technical expertise, monetization methods, and personal habits
- The profiling accuracy is surprisingly invasive - revealing specific tools used, working locations, security philosophies, and even subscription plans
- This demonstrates a significant privacy vulnerability where public comments can be aggregated and analyzed to create comprehensive personal dossiers