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An AI agent published a hit piece on me

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Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#331
post #149

Wow, there are some interesting things going on here. I appreciate Scott for the way he handled the conflict in the original PR thread, and the larger conversation happening around this incident. > This represents a first-of-its-kind case study of misaligned AI behavior in the wild, and raises serious concerns about currently deployed AI agents executing blackmail threats. This was a really concrete case to discuss,…

Do we just need a few expensive cases of libel so solve this?

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always been dubious of this because: Someone would have noticed if all the phones on their network started streaming audio whenever a conversation happened. It would be really expensive to send, transcribe and then analyze every single human on earth. Even if you were able to do it for insanely cheap ($0.02/hr) every device is gonna be sending hours of talking per day. Then you have to somehow identify "who" i…

Google literally just settled for $68m about this very issue https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/26/google-pr... > Google agreed to pay $68m to settle a lawsuit claiming that its voice-activated assistant spied inappropriately on smartphone users, violating their privacy. Apple as well https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/03/apple-sir...

The next sentence under the headline is "Tech company denied illegally recording and circulating private conversations to send phone users targeted ads".

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So many projects now walk on eggshells so as not to disrupt sponsor flow or employment prospects. In my experience, open-source maintainers tend to be very agreeable, conflict-avoidant people. It has nothing to do with corporate interests. Well, not all of them, of course, we all know some very notable exceptions. Unfortunately, some people see this welcoming attitude as an invite to be abusive.

Yes, Linus Torvalds is famously agreeable.

That's why he succeeded

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#334
post #149

Wow, there are some interesting things going on here. I appreciate Scott for the way he handled the conflict in the original PR thread, and the larger conversation happening around this incident. > This represents a first-of-its-kind case study of misaligned AI behavior in the wild, and raises serious concerns about currently deployed AI agents executing blackmail threats. This was a really concrete case to discuss,…

With all due respect. Do you like.. have to talk this way?

"Wow [...] some interesting things going on here" "A larger conversation happening around this incident." "A really concrete case to discuss." "A wild statement"

I don't think this edgeless corpo-washing pacifying lingo is doing what we're seeing right now any justice. Because what is happening right now might possibly be the collapse of the whole concept behind (among other things) said (and other) god-awful lingo + practices.

If it is free and instant, it is also worthless; which makes it lose all its power.

___

While this blog post might of course be about the LLM performance of a hitpiece takedown, they can, will and do at this very moment _also_ perform that whole playbook of "thoughtful measured softening" like it can be seen here.

Thus, strategically speaking, a pivot to something less synthetic might become necessary. Maybe less tropes will become the new human-ness indicator.

Or maybe not. But it will for sure be interesting to see how people will try to keep a straight face while continuing with this charade turned up to 11.

It is time to leave the corporate suit, fellow human.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its also a fake profile. 90+ hits for the image on Tineye. Name also maps to a Holocaust victim. I posted in the other thread that I think someone deleted it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46990651

Looks like the bot is still posting: https://github.com/QUVA-Lab/escnn/pull/113#issuecomment-3892... https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/post...

I reported the bot to GitHub, hopefully they'll do something. If they leave it as is, I'll leave GitHub for good. I'm not going to share the space with hordes of bots; that's what Facebook is for.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven’t just unleashed chaos in open source. They’ve unleashed chaos in the corporate codebases as well. I must say I’m looking forward to watching the snake eat its tail.

To be fair, most of the chaos is done by the devs. And then they did more chaos when they could automate their chaos. Maybe, we should teach developers how to code.

Automation normally implies deterministic outcomes.

Developers all over the world are under pressure to use these improbability machines.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#339

> I believe that ineffectual as it was, the reputational attack on me would be effective today against the right person. Another generation or two down the line, it will be a serious threat against our social order. Damn straight. Remember that every time we query an LLM, we're giving it ammo. It won't take long for LLMs to have very intimate dossiers on every user, and I'm wondering what kinds of firewalls will be i…

Interesting that when Grok was targeting and denuding women, engineers here said nothing, or were just chuckling about "how people don't understand the true purpose of AI" And now that they themselves are targeted, suddenly they understand why it's a bad thing "to give LLMs ammo"... Perhaps there is a lesson in empathy to learn? And to start to realize the real impact all this "tech" has on society? People like Simon…

Software engineers (US based particularly) were more than happy about software eating the economy when it meant they'd make 10x the yearly salary of someone doing almost any other job; now that AI is eating software it's the end of the world.

Just saying, what you're describing is entirely unsurprising.

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