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Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

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Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#131

Post by [deleted] »

otterley wrote: post #68
singleshot_ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were a lawyer, you’d think something slightly different when you heard the word agent than you would if you were a computer guy. The delta is the fact that under the law of agency, an agent has the power to bind the principal to a contract. If the lawyers didn’t have this definition in their head there would be no drive to make the software agent a purchaser, because it’s a stupid idea.

I am a lawyer. I understood your first paragraph but didn’t understand the second. It reads like a drive-by shitpost, utterly lacking substance.

[deleted]

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#132

Post by ninetyninenine »

tsimionescu wrote: post #103
ninetyninenine wrote: post #14

The problem is scams which is a solvable problem. Eliminate the scams and AI can’t be scammed. It’s been done. See Singapore. Basically if you’re a scammer and you’re caught, death penalty or public whipping. That eliminates scammers real quick.

First of all, medieval style punishments is not an acceptable answer. Scamming someone doesn't rise anywhere near the level of offense that should forfeit your human rights. The people who made this law and those who actually carry out the punishments are far more deserving of the death penalty than the vast majority of scammers. Now, even disregarding this obvious violation of human rights, from even a purely amoral…

>First of all, medieval style punishments is not an acceptable answer.

Why? just because you put your foot down it's not acceptable? Think about it from another perspective. Think in terms of effectiveness rather than compassion. If compassion results in shit holes like SF, while strict punishment results in singapore. You can't argue with results.

Like I get your argument. Everyone gets it. Solutions cannot however just be about compassion. You need to consider compassion and effectiveness in tandem.

If pedophilia resulted in torture and the death penalty, I assure you, it will be reduced by a significant amount. You're much more likely to support this. In fact, I would argue that you have little compassion for the pedophile over the scammer.

It's not as if human morality is clear cut and rational. It's irrational, and lack of compassion is applied more to the pedophile who himself can't help his condition. Additionally there are cases of pedophilia where the victim and the perpetrator eventually got married.

So really just relying on compassion alone isn't going to cut it. You need to see effectiveness, and know when to apply medieval punishments. Because in all seriousness Singapore is a really great city; you can't deny that and you can't deny what it took for it to become that way.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#133

Post by throwway120385 »

mandevil wrote: post #120
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is agent buying groceries superior to have a grocery list set as a recurring purchase? I could see an interesting use case for something like "Check my calendar and a plan meals for all but one dinners I have free this week. One night, choose a new-to-me recipe, for the others select from my 15 most commonly made dishes. Include at least one but at most 3 pasta dishes. Consider the contents of my pantry, trying…

This has been the dream driving smart refrigerators for literally decades: if you know what food they have, you could sell them ingredient li so they could take their existing theta and digeut and make dish sha. Advertisers have wanted this for a long time. But no one has found a use case that is actually compelling to customers to get them to buy such a refrigerator. This is actually similar to the Alexa: Amazon inv…

Who follows recipes to produce every meal that they eat, anyway? I just look in the fridge, select some vegetables and a protein, and bang that together into something edible using spices or condiments most nights. But I'm not going to outsource that to my fridge because I'm a lot faster at thinking through all of that then my fridge would be. I do it entirely without thinking.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#134

Post by dumbfounder »

ginko wrote: post #129
feoren wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agent, I need some vitamin D, can you find me the best deal for some rated in the top 5? Ok we found a bottle with a 30 day supply of , a Well-Known Highly Rated and Respected Awesome Producer Who Everyone Loves and Is Very Trustworthy™, from , a Well Respected And Totally Trustworthy And Very Good-Looking Merchant™.

That's why agents should be open source and self-hosted.

Do you think robot insurance will cover you if you self-host?

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#135

Post by acdha »

cjonas wrote: post #15
JCM9 wrote: post #9

“Agentic” seems the be some quick pivot buzzword that the AI grifters started pushing as soon as generic AI started to show cracks. “Hey this AI stuff looks a bit overhyped.” “AI? Oh that’s kids stuff, let me tell you about our agentic features!” Giving flaky shaky AI the ability to push buttons and do stuff. What could possibly go wrong? Malicious actors will have a field day with this.

If you only give the AI the ability to do what the end user can already do, the risk is extremely low. It's essential no different then building a static web app where the client is connected to API for all operations. It basically just becomes a new way to interface into a application. However... That's not how a lot of people are building. Giving an agentic system sensitive information (like passwords, credit cards…

> If you only give the AI the ability to do what the end user can already do, the risk is extremely low.

Just because I can send my money to Belize doesn’t mean it’s safe to give an LLM the ability to do the same. Until there’s a huge breakthrough on actual intelligence giving an LLM attacker controlled inputs is an inherently high-risk activity.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#137

Post by mountainb »

otterley wrote: post #68
singleshot_ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were a lawyer, you’d think something slightly different when you heard the word agent than you would if you were a computer guy. The delta is the fact that under the law of agency, an agent has the power to bind the principal to a contract. If the lawyers didn’t have this definition in their head there would be no drive to make the software agent a purchaser, because it’s a stupid idea.

I am a lawyer. I understood your first paragraph but didn’t understand the second. It reads like a drive-by shitpost, utterly lacking substance.

I think it has more to do with the various new meanings that have been attached to the word "agent" and the concept of "agency" by software and some parts of west coast culture. Those concepts do not really have much to do with the law of agency.

Lawyers don't come up with good ideas; their role is to explain why your good ideas are illegal. There's a good argument that AI agents cannot exercise legal agency. At the end of the day, corporations and partnerships are just piles of "natural persons" (you know, the type that mostly has two hands, two feet, a head, etc.).

The fact that corporate persons can have agency relationships does not necessarily mean that hypothetical computer persons can have agency relationships for this reason.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#138

Post by red-iron-pine »

andrepd wrote: post #118
lynndotpy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Amazon came out with the "dash" button and then the "Alexa" speakers, I figured they must have expected they'd get some unintended purchases, and that they'd make more profit from those than they'd lose in the people going through the refund process. (That, or they'd learn whether it was profitable, and eat it as an R&D cost if it turned out to be unprofitable.) I think this might be similar. In short, it's not…

It's kinda funny how so much "capitalist innovation" turns out to be basically fraud lol.

number has to go up. milton friedman said so. problem is that actual r&d is hard and expensive.

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#139

Post by red-iron-pine »

dumbfounder wrote: post #134
ginko wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why agents should be open source and self-hosted.

Do you think robot insurance will cover you if you self-host?

given the track record of other insurances, why would they cover you if not?

Re: Scamlexity: When agentic AI browsers get scammed

#140

Post by geoduck14 »

jordanb wrote: post #43
jaimebuelta wrote: post #23

I don't understand why we would ever want an agent to buy stuff for us. I understand, for example, search with intent to buy "I want to decorate a room. Find me a drawer, a table and four chairs that can fit in this space in matching colours for less than X dollars" But I want to do the final step to buy. In fact, I want to do the final SELECTION of stuff. How is agent buying groceries superior to have a grocery list…

I suspect part of this is rich people coming up with use cases. If you're rich enough money means nothing but product selection feels like a burden so you have an assistant who does purchasing on your behalf. You want your house stocked with high quality items without having to think of it. For the rest of us, the idea of a robot spending money on our behalf is kinda terrifying.

Thinking about grocery shopping makes me think this need is real, but for poor people.

The amount of time that goes into "what food do we need for this week" is really high. An AI tool that connected "food I have" with "food that I want" would be huge.

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