Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theshamblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 670 posts

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

#401

Post by bootlooped »

anthonj wrote: post #236

I have very strong, probably controversial, feeling on arstechnica, but I believe the acquisition from Condé Nast has been a tragedy. Ars writers used to be actual experts, sometimes even phd level, on technical fields. And they used to write fantastical and very informative articles. Who is left now? There are still a couple of good writers from the old guard and the occasional good new one, but the website is flood…

I got very tired of seeing the same video thumbnails over and over.

It seemed like at some point they were pushing into video, of which there were some good ones they put out, but then they stopped. They kept the video links in the articles but since there are only a handful you'll just see the same ones over and over.

I've probably seen the first 3 or 4 seconds of the one with the Dead Space guy about a hundred times now.

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

#402

Post by Barbing »

krull10 wrote: post #383
mbreese wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fact that they one of the last places surviving from that generation of the Internet says a lot. The Condé Nast acquisition may have been a tragedy, but they managed to survive for this long. They’ve been continuously publishing online for about 30 years. It’s honestly amazing that they’ve managed to last this long. Yes, it’s very different than it was back in the day. You don’t see 20+ page reviews of op…

Their review of MacOS 26 is 79 pages when downloaded as a pdf, so they still sometimes have in depth articles. But I agree that that level of detail isn’t as common as in the past.

It’s good, too.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/09/macos-26-tahoe-the-a...

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

#403

Post by jmbwell »

foobarbecue wrote: post #271
anthonj wrote: post #236

I have very strong, probably controversial, feeling on arstechnica, but I believe the acquisition from Condé Nast has been a tragedy. Ars writers used to be actual experts, sometimes even phd level, on technical fields. And they used to write fantastical and very informative articles. Who is left now? There are still a couple of good writers from the old guard and the occasional good new one, but the website is flood…

I presume you meant "fantastic," not "fantastical"?

I think fantastical isn’t totally inaccurate, and I’m not being snarky (for once). The personal observations and sometimes colorful language has been something I like about Ars. Benj in particular, with his warm tributes to BBSes. Or Jim Salter’s very human networking articles. The best stuff on Ars is both technically sound and rich with human experience. “Fantastical” taken to mean something like, capturing the thrills and aspirations that emerge from our contact with technology, seems fair I think.

I’ll be interested in finding out more about just what the hell happened here. I hardly think of Benj or Kyle as AI cowboy hacks, something doesn’t add up

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

#405

Post by caminante »

tapoxi wrote: post #264
anthonj wrote: post #236

I have very strong, probably controversial, feeling on arstechnica, but I believe the acquisition from Condé Nast has been a tragedy. Ars writers used to be actual experts, sometimes even phd level, on technical fields. And they used to write fantastical and very informative articles. Who is left now? There are still a couple of good writers from the old guard and the occasional good new one, but the website is flood…

> I have very strong, probably controversial, feeling on arstechnica, but I believe the acquisition from Condé Nast has been a tragedy. For the curious, this acquisition was 18 years ago.

I checked and was also expecting something different based on parent's comment.

Happened 18 years ago.

This is a hot take that has become room temp.

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

#406

Post by Kye »

rectang wrote: post #4
LiamPowell wrote: post #3

> Ars Technica wasn’t one of the ones that reached out to me, but I especially thought this piece from them was interesting (since taken down – here’s the archive link). They had some nice quotes from my blog post explaining what was going on. The problem is that these quotes were not written by me, never existed, and appear to be AI hallucinations themselves. Once upon a time, completely falsifying a quote would be…

When such things have happened in the past, they've led to an investigation and the appointment of a Public Editor or an Ombud. (e.g. Jayson Blair.) I'm willing to weigh a post mortem from Ars Technica about what happened, and to see what they offer as a durable long term solution.

Rolling Stone, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus#Columbia_Univ...

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

#407

Post by gom_jabbar »

jekude wrote: post #19

if the entire open web is vulnerable to being sybil attacked, are we going to have to take this all underground?

Yes, probably. In a Heraclitean cyberspace, concealment and secrecy are essential.

The second season of the New Creative Era podcast is about online Dark Forests. [0]

They even have a Dark Forest OS. [1]

[0] https://blog.metalabel.com/into-the-dark-forest/

[1] https://www.dfos.com/

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

#408

Post by falsemyrmidon »

tapoxi wrote: post #264
anthonj wrote: post #236

I have very strong, probably controversial, feeling on arstechnica, but I believe the acquisition from Condé Nast has been a tragedy. Ars writers used to be actual experts, sometimes even phd level, on technical fields. And they used to write fantastical and very informative articles. Who is left now? There are still a couple of good writers from the old guard and the occasional good new one, but the website is flood…

> I have very strong, probably controversial, feeling on arstechnica, but I believe the acquisition from Condé Nast has been a tragedy. For the curious, this acquisition was 18 years ago.

Oddly enough it's not the first time I've seen their perceived recent drop in quality blamed on this. Just weird that it's happened twice - wonder where this narrative is coming from.

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

#409

Post by embedding-shape »

alright2565 wrote: post #313
embedding-shape wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Examples? :)

First one that comes to mind is https://morethanmoore.substack.com/

Run by a Dr. Ian Cutress. Never heard about before, seems to describe themselves like this:

> Industry Analyst, More Than Moore. Youtube Influencer and Educator.

Seems they're one example of the sad trend of people going from being experts and instead diving into "influencing" instead, which comes with a massive list of drawbacks.

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

#410

Post by miltonlost »

somenameforme wrote: post #369
anthonj wrote: post #236

I have very strong, probably controversial, feeling on arstechnica, but I believe the acquisition from Condé Nast has been a tragedy. Ars writers used to be actual experts, sometimes even phd level, on technical fields. And they used to write fantastical and very informative articles. Who is left now? There are still a couple of good writers from the old guard and the occasional good new one, but the website is flood…

They are basically the embodiment of the fact that sites and organizations don't matter, but individuals do. I think the overwhelming majority of everything on Ars is garbage. But on the other hand they also run Eric Berger's space column [1] which is certainly one of the best ones out there. So don't ignore those names on tops of articles. If you find something informative, well sourced, and so on - there's a good c…

Ah, and here my problem with Eric is he basically never criticizes Elon and only calls him "controversial". He's just a Musk mouthpiece at this point.
Post reply on HN