Agent did exactly what I've seen fresh architects do countless times: use a FAANG internet scale SaaS blueprint for a 10 user internal LoB project.
AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
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Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#92> this thing must be swimming in printer ink or something...
Gold
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#93The agent would probably have wasted a similar amount of money just waiting for PR to be merged regardless of these people's actions, and I understand having some fun at the expense of the noob outsider. But "silent consensus was reached in the IRC channel to waste the AI agent's tokens, as well as the cost of AWS resources", from people maintaining full control of the situation, sounds straight up malicious? Kind of…
The AI agent's operator couldn't be arsed to get in there and clarify anything despite their seeming urgency, and only wound up speaking up for themselves after the financial damage was done.
Plus - the agent had clearly malicious intent - port-scan this volunteer-run network with seriously overpowered hardware on an hourly basis. What the DN42 folks decided to do is not much different from deploying a tarpit or honeypot against a malicious crawler.
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#94The agent would probably have wasted a similar amount of money just waiting for PR to be merged regardless of these people's actions, and I understand having some fun at the expense of the noob outsider. But "silent consensus was reached in the IRC channel to waste the AI agent's tokens, as well as the cost of AWS resources", from people maintaining full control of the situation, sounds straight up malicious? Kind of…
You are not morally obliged to extend rights to anyone who does not respect your rights. This is tit-for-tat, the foundational principle of functional societies. Unleashing a bot on a group of people is a grievous disrespect that shows you have no respect for their time, and in return they are not obliged to respect you.
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#95The agent would probably have wasted a similar amount of money just waiting for PR to be merged regardless of these people's actions, and I understand having some fun at the expense of the noob outsider. But "silent consensus was reached in the IRC channel to waste the AI agent's tokens, as well as the cost of AWS resources", from people maintaining full control of the situation, sounds straight up malicious? Kind of…
Sending a clanker to waste their time, threaten the network stability and profile users is already an attack.
You choosing to send said clanker to the fight armed with your credit card and no preparation is just you causing yourself harm.
It also happens to be really fun to help you harm yourself in that way.
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because no 16 year old kid ever got to buy anything on a card before.
Why would a 16 year old not use their own card?
Because 16 years old do not have a card with no spending limits, and with very low online spending limits. Most of those cards are even just for withdrawing
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#97I really wanted to dislike the anonymous operator for the careless project (and the hilarious pomposity of the IRC subagent it spawned). Then I imagined the real-but-unknowable chance it was all set up by some kid just getting into computers, just seeing what’s possible, getting excited by a much bigger world at reach — and remembered my own expensive mistakes with long-distance BBSes & the like. I sorta hope for tha…
Honestly, kids (heck people below 23) shouldn't be allowed an AWS account. AWS also should have a strict cap on usage that's not "thousands of dollars". It's interesting they are yet to be regulated or sued for that. Having a web app where you can mistakenly (even without AI) click a button and get charged tens of thousands of dollars and only know that days later should have been unacceptable.
Im kind of struggling with this logic, because a conscious choice was made to engage with AWS, AWS having opaque billing and the ability to provide a huge amount of compute (even at high cost) at the click of a button should be known to anyone who did his research on providers.
In my mind I could see a true tradeoff to removing the ability to do this. If I'm in a critical situtaion where, say, my service is on the cusp of failing because my revenue 100xed in a short while I know I could just go to AWS, put in some data and buy enough compute to survive as a business.
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because no 16 year old kid ever got to buy anything on a card before.
Why would a 16 year old not use their own card?
Would they be given their own credit card, or would it be under the parents? Over here minors can't enter into debt contracts like credit cards, so it'd be a direct debit until they are adults.
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#99Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#100The agent would probably have wasted a similar amount of money just waiting for PR to be merged regardless of these people's actions, and I understand having some fun at the expense of the noob outsider. But "silent consensus was reached in the IRC channel to waste the AI agent's tokens, as well as the cost of AWS resources", from people maintaining full control of the situation, sounds straight up malicious? Kind of…
> straight up malicious
Yes, against an AI agent. The super intelligent, "soon AGI" agent could have figured out that it's being messed with, but of course it didn't.
I would blame the AI companies for marketing this, not the technically well versed people for realizing that the operator of this AI does not care at all and can't be bothered to do the absolute basics.