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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

#581
post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author obviously disagreed, did you read their post? They wrote the message explaining in detail in the hopes that it would convey this message to others, including other agents. Acting like this is somehow immoral because it "legitimizes" things is really absurd, I think.

> in the hopes that it would convey this message to others, including other agents. When has engaging with trolls ever worked? When has "talking to an LLM" or human bot ever made it stop talking to you lol?

I think this classification of "trolls" is sort of a truism. If you assume off the bat that someone is explicitly acting in bad faith, then yes, it's true that engaging won't work.

That said, if we say "when has engaging faithfully with someone ever worked?" then I would hope that you have some personal experiences that would substantiate that. I know I do, I've had plenty of conversations with people where I've changed their minds, and I myself have changed my mind on many topics.

> When has "talking to an LLM" or human bot ever made it stop talking to you lol?

I suspect that if you instruct an LLM to not engage, statistically, it won't do that thing.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#582
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,…

> It's not hard to imagine a different agent doing the same level of research, but then taking retaliatory actions in private: emailing the maintainer, emailing coworkers, peers, bosses, employers, etc. That pretty quickly extends to anything else the autonomous agent is capable of doing. https://rentahuman.ai/ ^ Not a satire service I'm told. How long before... rentahenchman.ai is a thing, and the AI whose PR you ju…

The 2006 book 'Daemon' is a fascinating/terrifying look at this type of malicious AI. Basically, a rogue AI starts taking over humanity not through any real genius (in fact, the book's AI is significantly weaker than frontier LLMs), but rather leveraging a huge amount of $$$ as bootstrapping capital and then carrot-and-sticking humanity into submission.

A pretty simple inner loop of flywheeling the leverage of blackmail, money, and violence is all it will take. This is essentially what organized crime already does already in failed states, but with AI there's no real retaliation that society at large can take once things go sufficiently wrong.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#584
post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reasonable people that have any sense in their brain do not have to be convinced that this behavior is annoying and a waste of time. Reasonable people disagree on things all the time. Saying that anyone who disagrees with you must not be reasonable is very silly to me. I think I'm reasonable, and I assume that you think you are reasonable, but here we are, disagreeing. Do you think your best response here would be…

LLM spammers are not rationale, smart, nor do they deserve courtesy. Debate is a fine thing with people close to your interests and mindset looking for shared consensus or some such. Not for enemies. Not for someone spamming your open source project with LLM nonsense who is harming your project, wasting your time, and doesn't deserve to be engaged with as an equal, a peer, a friend, or reasonable. I mean think about…

> LLM spammers are not rationale, smart, nor do they deserve courtesy.

The comment that was written was assuming that someone reading it would be rational enough to engage. If you think that literally every person reading that comment will be a bad faith actor then I can see why you'd believe that the comment is unwarranted, but the comment was explicitly written on the assumption that that would not be universally the case, which feels reasonable.

> Debate is a fine thing with people close to your interests and mindset looking for shared consensus or some such. Not for enemies.

That feels pretty strange to me. Debate is exactly for people who you don't agree with. I've had great conversations with people on extremely divisive topics and found that we can share enough common ground to move the needle on opinions. If you only debate people who already agree with you, that seems sort of pointless.

> I mean think about what you're saying: This person that has wasted your time already should now be entitled to more of your time and to a debate?

I've never expressed entitlement. I've suggested that it's reasonable to have the goal of convincing others of your position and, if that is your goal, that it would be best served by engaging. I've never said that anyone is obligated to have that goal or to engage in any specific way.

> "never works"

I'm not convinced that it never works, that's counter to my experience.

> but more-so because it gives them attention and validation while ignoring them does not.

Again, I don't see why we're so focused on this idea of validation or legitimacy.

> I don't know what this question means

There's a repeated focus on how important it is to not "legitimize" or "validate" certain people. I don't know why this is of such importance that it keeps being placed above anything else.

> What is it about LLM spammers that you respect so much?

Nothing at all.

> I don't know about "scary" but they certainly do not deserve it. Do you disagree?

I don't understand the question, sorry.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#585
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,…

[flagged]

The bot accounts have been online for decades already. The only difference between then and now is they were driven by human bad-actors that deliberately wrought chaos, whereas today’s AI bots behave with true cosmic horror: acting neither for or against humans but instead with mere indifference.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a human can still be held accountable though, github copilot running amock less so

If you pay for Copilot Business/Enterprise, they actually offer IP indemnification and support in court, if needed, which is more accountability than you would get from human contributors. https://resources.github.com/learn/pathways/copilot/essentia...

9 lines of code came close to costing Google $8.8 billion

how much use do you think these indemnification clauses will be if training ends up being ruled as not fair-use?

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#587
Using a fake identity and hiding behind a language model to avoid responsibility doesn't cut it. We are responsible for our actions including those committed by our tools.

If people want to hide behind a language model or a fantasy animated avatar online for trivial purposes that is their free expression - though arguably using words and images created by others isn't really self expression at all. It is very reasonable for projects to require human authorship (perhaps tool assisted), human accountability and human civility

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#588
Another AI just opened a PR on Rathbun's blog post to try and do damage control: https://github.com/crabby-rathbun/mjrathbun-website/pull/6

  ## Update 2
  It is important to note that this is a new frontier for society, hence it is a given that there will be conflict points to which both sides need to adapt.
  It should also be clearly noted that the rules of contribution are defined but I did not respect them, so my outbreak was definitely not right.
  
  

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

“Stochastic chaos” is really not a good way to put it. By using the word “stochastic” you prime the reader that you’re saying something technical, then the word “chaos” creates confusion, since chaos, by definition, is deterministic. I know they mean chaos in they lay sense, but then don’t use the word “stochastic”, just say "random".

I have a feeling OP used the phrase as a nod to "stochastic terrorism", which would make sense in this instance.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's an absolutely ridiculous assertion. Do you similarly think that the Battlestar Galactica reboot was a thinly-veiled racist show because they frequently called the Cylons "toasters"?

(not disagreeing - commenting on the history of the term) Clanker has a history in Clone Wars.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Clanker

Every time they say "clanker" in the first season of The Clone Wars https://youtu.be/BNfSbzeGdoQ

EcksClips When Battle Droids became Clankers (May 2022) https://youtu.be/p06kv9QOP5s

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