Live data from Hacker News

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

theshamblog.com

11–20 of 95 posts

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

#11
The Ars Technica journalist's account is worth a read. https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p

Benji Edwards was, is, and will continue to be, a good guy. He's just exhibiting a (hopefully) temporary over-reliance on AI tools that aren't up to the task. Any of us who use these tools could make a mistake of this kind.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

#12
post #8

[flagged]

What a weird, victim-blame-y thing to say. Something genuinely shitty was done to this guy by an LLM - who, as an open source maintainer, probably already is kind of pissed about what LLMs are doing to the world. Then another shitty thing was done to him by Ars' LLM! Of course he's thinking about it a lot. Of course he has thoughts about the consequences of AI on the future. Of course he wants to share his thoughts.…

[flagged]

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

#13
Open source developer is slandered by AI and complains. Immediately people call him names and defend their precious LLMs. You cannot make this up.

Rathbun's style is very likely AI, and quickly collecting information for the hit piece also points to AI. Whether the bot did this fully autonomously or not does not matter.

It is likely that someone did this to research astroturfing as a service, including the automatic generation of oppo files and spread of slander. That person may want to get hired by the likes of OpenAI.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

#15

Whether or not its true, we only have to look at Peter Steinberger, the guy who made Moltbook - the "social media for ai", and then got hired amist great publicity fanfare by OpenAI to know that there is a lot of money out there for people making exciting stores about AI. Never mind that much of the media attention on moltbook was based on human written posts that were faking AI. I think Mr. Shambaugh is probably tel…

steinberger didnt make moltbook fyi, some other guy did. steinberger just made openclaw.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

#16

The Ars Technica journalist's account is worth a read. https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p Benji Edwards was, is, and will continue to be, a good guy. He's just exhibiting a (hopefully) temporary over-reliance on AI tools that aren't up to the task. Any of us who use these tools could make a mistake of this kind.

lol this feels a little bit suspect to me. "i was sick, i was rushing to a deadline!" im not saying the guy should lose his journalist license and have to turn in his badge and pen but seems like a bit of a flimsy excuse meant to make us forgive him. hope hes feeling better soon!

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

#17
post #8

[flagged]

What a weird, victim-blame-y thing to say. Something genuinely shitty was done to this guy by an LLM - who, as an open source maintainer, probably already is kind of pissed about what LLMs are doing to the world. Then another shitty thing was done to him by Ars' LLM! Of course he's thinking about it a lot. Of course he has thoughts about the consequences of AI on the future. Of course he wants to share his thoughts.…

i think i sort of skimmed the hit piece but what exactly was so shitty about it?

im not saying this dude is histrionic but he sure is generating a lot of front page HN posts about something i was ready to forget about a week ago.

obviously AI has become such a lightning rod now that everyone is upset one way or the other but this seems a bit like small potatoes at this point. forest for the trees.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

#18

What I don't understand is how is this agent still running? Does the author not read tech news (seems unlikely for someone running openclaw). Or is this some weird publicity stunt? (But then why is nobody walking forward to take credit?)

Likely the LLM operator is just a 'likes to see the world burn' type.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

#20

What I don't understand is how is this agent still running? Does the author not read tech news (seems unlikely for someone running openclaw). Or is this some weird publicity stunt? (But then why is nobody walking forward to take credit?)

If I've learned one thing in life: some people are totally shameless.
Post reply on HN