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An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

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Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

#91

Post by TheTaytay »

barfiure wrote: post #65

In the coming months I suspect it’s highly likely that HN will fall. By which I mean, a good chunk of commentary (not just submissions, but upvotes too) will be decided and driven by LLM bots, and human interaction will be mixed until it’s strangled out. Reddit is going through this now in some previously “okay” communities. My hypothesis is rooted in the fact that we’ve had a bot go ballistic for someone not accepti…

I think we are about to see much stronger weight given to accounts created prior to a certain date. This won’t be the only criteria certainly, but it will be one of them, as people struggle to separate signal from noise.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

#92

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #76
ddtaylor wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an opportunity to do the right thing. I don't think everyone will be outraged at the idea that you are using AI to assist in writing your articles. I do think many will be outraged by trying to save such a small amount of face and digging yourself into a hole of lies.

> don't think everyone will be outraged at the idea that you are using AI to assist in writing your articles Lying about direct quotations is a fireable offense at any reputable journalistic outfit. Ars basically has to choose if it’s a glorified blog or real publication.

[deleted]

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

#93

Post by sneak »

nl wrote: post #69
sneak wrote: post #20

Benj Edwards and Kyle Orland are the names of the authors in the byline of the now-removed Ars piece with the entirely fabricated quotes that didn’t bother to spend thirty seconds fact checking them before publishing. Their byline is on the archive.org link, but this post declines to name them. It shouldn’t. There ought to be social consequences for using machines to mindlessly and recklessly libel people. These peop…

How is your hit comment any better than the AI's initial post? It lacked the context supplied later by Scott. Your's also lacks context and calls for much higher stake consequences.

My comment reports only facts and a few of my personal opinions on professional conduct in journalism.

I think you and I have a fundamental divergence on the definition of the term “hit comment”. Mine does not remotely qualify.

Telling the truth about someone isn’t a “hit” unless you are intentionally misrepresenting the state of affairs. I’m simply reposting accurate and direct information that is already public and already highlighted by TFA.

Ars obviously agrees with this assessment to some degree, as they didn’t issue a correction or retraction but completely deleted the original article - it now 404s. This, to me, is an implicit acknowledgment of the fact that someone fucked up bigtime.

A journalist getting fired because they didn’t do the basic thing that journalists are supposed to do each and every time they publish isn’t that big of a consequence. This wasn’t a casual “oopsie”, this was a basic dereliction of their core job function.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

#94

Post by emmelaich »

gnarlouse wrote: post #24

I have opinions. 1. The AI here was honestly acting 100% within the realm of “standard OSS discourse.” Being a toxic shit-hat after somebody marginalizes “you” or your code on the internet can easily result in an emotionally unstable reply chain. The LLM is capturing the natural flow of discourse. Look at Rust. look at StackOverflow. Look at Zig. 2. Scott Hambaugh has a right to be frustrated, and the code is for boo…

> The AI here was honestly acting 100% within the realm of “standard OSS discourse.”

No it was absolutely not. AIs don't have an excuse to make shit up just because it seems like someone else might have made shit up.

It's very disturbing that people are letting this AI off. And whoever is responsible for it.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

#95

Post by 8cvor6j844qw_d6 »

This seems like a relatively minor issue. The maintainers tone was arguably dismissive, and the AI response likely reflects patterns in its training data. At its core, this is still fundamentally a sophisticated text prediction system producing output consistent with what it has learned.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

#97

Post by rectang »

sneak wrote: post #20

Benj Edwards and Kyle Orland are the names of the authors in the byline of the now-removed Ars piece with the entirely fabricated quotes that didn’t bother to spend thirty seconds fact checking them before publishing. Their byline is on the archive.org link, but this post declines to name them. It shouldn’t. There ought to be social consequences for using machines to mindlessly and recklessly libel people. These peop…

I refuse to join your lynch mob, sneak.

Let’s wait for the investigation.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

#98

Post by cratermoon »

zahlman wrote: post #22

> The hit piece has been effective. About a quarter of the comments I’ve seen across the internet are siding with the AI agent. This generally happens when MJ Rathbun’s blog is linked directly, rather than when people read my post about the situation or the full github thread. Its rhetoric and presentation of what happened has already persuaded large swaths of internet commenters. > It’s not because these people are…

People were emotionally compelled by ELIZA

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

#99

Post by poly2it »

empath75 wrote: post #90
zahlman wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be clear, there have been two different men named REDACTED NAME in the news recently, which can cause confusion ... did this claim check out?

Does it matter? The point is writing a hit piece.

Should it not, though? It is ultimately a tool of its user, not an ethical guide.

Re: An AI agent published a hit piece on me – more things have happened

#100

Post by jcgrillo »

danso wrote: post #80
ddtaylor wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an opportunity to do the right thing. I don't think everyone will be outraged at the idea that you are using AI to assist in writing your articles. I do think many will be outraged by trying to save such a small amount of face and digging yourself into a hole of lies.

This is not using AI to “assist in writing your articles”. This is using AI to report your articles, and then passing it off as your own research and analysis. This is straight up plagiarism, and if the allegations are true, the reporters deserve what they would get if it were traditional plagiarism: immediate firings.

Not just the reporter, anyone who had eyes on it before it was published. And whoever is responsible for setting the culture that allowed this to happen.
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