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AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

lantian.pub

101–110 of 575 posts

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#101
post #48

Who is giving a robot their credit card to spin up AWS accounts?

Meta allowed an LLM to change users email address for a password reset. Funny times are ahead...

No, you don't understand! Meta told us the LLM itself "worked properly and functioned as intended" and it was only due to a bug in a "separate code path" that made this attack possible. Don't go around blaming innocent LLMs!

(/s)

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#102

The 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…

> from people maintaining full control of the situation, sounds straight up malicious

It doesn't sound malicious, it was malicious on purpose and it was a good thing.

If anything, the original operator should be happy to have been hit with a $ 1'800 lesson and not a $ 180'000 one.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#103

The 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…

FAFO

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#104

The 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…

Its malicious to send a bot to chew up time of a hobbiest community. They responded appropriately. If anything they should also bill him for their time.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#106
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think the type of the card really matters as long as the limits are reasonable.

> Over here minors can't enter into debt contracts like credit cards

In basically all of the western world minors can enter into debt contracts, but are generally not seen as particularly creditworthy.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#107

The 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…

Someone’s code pretending to be intelligence has no rights. There is no obligation to entertain the shenanigans and illusion that the token dispenser is a legitimate actor. This lesson was cheaper, future lessons will continue to occur until people learn. Might as well be an insecure bash script piped to the shell.

“Agentic AI is just someone else’s unsecured execution context.”

https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/16/the-lethal-trifecta/

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#108
post #34
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's by default so you use all those tasty tokens. Kinda wish there was a deterministic, mostly terse, language to interact with computers

Terse and unambiguous seem to be at odds with each other. You might want to look into Lojban and similar constructions.

Ithkuil's mad morphology allows it to pack a lot of fine detail into very short sentences.

https://ithkuil.net/03_morphology.html

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#109
post #7

I 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…

> some kid just getting into computers, just seeing what’s possible, getting excited by a much bigger world at reach

Nothing about this post ever gave me the smallest hint that this was any way related to a kid exploring computing world.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#110

The 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…

Don't agree with you. The agent looked to be malicious at various points. Screwing with people who wish you to do harm is principally correct.

If possible I would have contacted AWS with this and tried them to get rid of the discount because the person was at fault here.

What a cathartic read. I'm so sick of humans giving me AI slop to read without them reading it first. I just ignore them when they do this, but if I could cause them to really internalise a lesson I would love it.

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