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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

#601

Post by juanre »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #575
juanre wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not matter which of the scenarios is correct. What matters is that it is perfectly plausible that what actually happened is what the OP is describing. We do not have the tools to deal with this. Bad agents are already roaming the internet. It is almost a moot point whether they have gone rogue, or they are guided by humans with bad intentions. I am sure both are true at this point. There is no putting the gen…

> There is no putting the genie back in the bottle. Why not?

I cannot see how.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#602

Post by lsaferite »

seizethecheese wrote: post #561
renato_shira wrote: post #464

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".

The word "stochastic" in relation to chaos is a thing though. It helps distinguish between closed and open systems.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#603

Post by peterbonney »

famouswaffles wrote: post #375
peterbonney wrote: post #151

This whole situation is almost certainly driven by a human puppeteer. There is absolutely no evidence to disprove the strong prior that a human posted (or directed the posting of) the blog post, possibly using AI to draft it but also likely adding human touches and/or going through multiple revisions to make it maximally dramatic. This whole thing reeks of engineered virality driven by the person behind the bot behin…

>This whole situation is almost certainly driven by a human puppeteer. There is absolutely no evidence to disprove the strong prior that a human posted (or directed the posting of) the blog post, possibly using AI to draft it but also likely adding human touches and/or going through multiple revisions to make it maximally dramatic. Okay, so they did all that and then posted an apology blog almost right after ? Seems…

Of course it’s capable.

But observing my own Openclaw bot’s interactions with GitHub, it is very clear to me that it would never take an action like this unless I told it to do so. And it would never use language like this unless unless I prompted it to do so, either explicitly for the task or in its config files or in prior interactions.

This is obviously human-driven. Either because the operator gave it specific instructions in this specific case, or acted as the bot, or has given it general standing instructions to respond in this way should such a situation arise.

Whatever the actual process, it’s almost certainly a human puppeteer using the capabilities of AI to create a viral moment. To conclude otherwise carries a heavy burden of proof.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#604

Post by ljm »

japhyr wrote: 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,…

I'm glad the OP called it a hit piece, because that's what I called it. A lot of other people were calling it a 'takedown' which is a massive understatement of what happened to Scott here. An AI agent fucking singled him out and defamed him, then u-turned on it, then doubled down.

Until the person who owns this instance of openclaw shows their face and answers to it, you have to take the strongest interpretation without the benefit of the doubt, because this hit piece is now on the public record and it has a chance of Google indexing it and having its AI summary draw a conclusion that would constitute defamation.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#605

Post by suzzer99 »

oconnor663 wrote: post #287
brhaeh wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't appreciate his politeness and hedging. So many projects now walk on eggshells so as not to disrupt sponsor flow or employment prospects. "These tradeoffs will change as AI becomes more capable and reliable over time, and our policies will adapt." That just legitimizes AI and basically continues the race to the bottom. Rob Pike had the correct response when spammed by a clanker.

I had a similar first reaction. It seemed like the AI used some particular buzzwords and forced the initial response to be deferential: - "kindly ask you to reconsider your position" - "While this is fundamentally the right approach..." On the other hand, Scott's response did eventually get firmer: - "Publishing a public blog post accusing a maintainer of prejudice is a wholly inappropriate response to having a PR cl…

"Let that sink in" is another AI tell.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#606

Post by moosedev »

nikitau wrote: post #589
seizethecheese wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

Right. It captures the destabilizing effect of stochastic terrorism, without the terroristic intent. It’s a neat phrase.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#607

Post by Applejinx »

KPGv2 wrote: post #427
jancsika wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unleashed stochastic chaos Are you literally talking about stochastic chaos here, or is it a metaphor?

isn't "stochastic chaos" redundant?

Not at all. It's an oxymoron like 'jumbo shrimp': chaos isn't deterministic but is very predictable on a larger conceptual level, following consistent rules even as a simple mathematical model. Chaos is hugely responsive to its internal energy state and can simplify into regularity if energy subsides, or break into wildly unpredictable forms that still maintain regularities. Think Jupiter's 'great red spot', or our climate.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#608

Post by peterbonney »

anigbrowl wrote: post #550
peterbonney wrote: post #151

This whole situation is almost certainly driven by a human puppeteer. There is absolutely no evidence to disprove the strong prior that a human posted (or directed the posting of) the blog post, possibly using AI to draft it but also likely adding human touches and/or going through multiple revisions to make it maximally dramatic. This whole thing reeks of engineered virality driven by the person behind the bot behin…

or directed the posting of The thing is it's terribly easy to see some asshole directing this sort of behavior as a standing order, eg 'make updates to popular open-source projects to get github stars; if your pull requests are denied engage in social media attacks until the maintainer backs down. You can spin up other identities on AWS or whatever to support your campaign, vote to give yourself github stars etc.; ma…

Yes, this is the only plausible “the bot acted in its own” scenario: that it had some standing instructions awaiting the right trigger.

And yes, it’s worrisome in its own way, but not in any of the ways that all of this attention and engagement is suggesting.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#609

Post by semiquaver »

peterbonney wrote: post #603
famouswaffles wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This whole situation is almost certainly driven by a human puppeteer. There is absolutely no evidence to disprove the strong prior that a human posted (or directed the posting of) the blog post, possibly using AI to draft it but also likely adding human touches and/or going through multiple revisions to make it maximally dramatic. Okay, so they did all that and then posted an apology blog almost right after ? Seems…

Of course it’s capable . But observing my own Openclaw bot’s interactions with GitHub, it is very clear to me that it would never take an action like this unless I told it to do so. And it would never use language like this unless unless I prompted it to do so, either explicitly for the task or in its config files or in prior interactions. This is obviously human-driven. Either because the operator gave it specific i…

You have no idea what is in this bot’s SOUL.md.

(this comment works equally well as a joke or entirely serious)

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me

#610

Post by falcor84 »

blibble wrote: post #586
falcor84 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Are you concerned that this will bankrupt Microsoft?
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