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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

#261

Post by Melkman »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #70
mik3y wrote: 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…

> 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 Perhaps people like this should be called "Bot Kiddies" or "Agent Kiddies" - in a similar way to "Script Kiddies" for 'hackers' using/doing stuff they don't quite understand

I vote for Slop Kiddies or Vibe Kiddies. And yes, I think most of them are unconsciously incompetent for the task they are trying to execute. I've seen LLM being compared to calculators and I agree. They are great time savers for people who know what they do and how to achieve their goal. They even make previously impossible tasks possible. But if you don't know what is needed for a task you will be struggling to accomplish it.

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

#262

Post by jnovek »

lostlogin wrote: post #234
claudiosf1 wrote: post #207

Everything about this story, from the way it’s written to the self destructive outcome, reminds me of the “I hacked 127.0.0.1” episode from some twenty years ago. [1] a mirror since I couldn’t find the original: https://gist.github.com/Androkai/0a2602719fa72ce454d436bfe28...

That’s up there with the password story, hunter2.

What the heck is *******?

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

#263

Post by pbhjpbhj »

l23k4 wrote: post #73
V__ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a kid set up an AWS account? Are there no checks? Wouldn't the contract be void for anyone underage anyway?

> Can a kid set up an AWS account? Yes > Are there no checks? No >Wouldn't the contract be void for anyone underage anyway? Typically not

Presumably companies can't enforce debts against children [who are under the age of criminal liability, which is under-10 in UK].

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

#264

Post by altairprime »

themafia wrote: post #193
altairprime wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes your purpose in life is to serve as a lesson to others. https://despair.com/products/mistakes I learned very rapidly from my local BBS networks that some people incurred extraordinarily large long distance bills dialing out of region. Wouldn’t have learned that the easy way if someone hadn’t learned it the hard way first.

There was often a little table at the front of the white pages which would help you work out what the rate would be for any particular long distance call. In the Midwest you could get relatively cheap rates to BBSes several states away, as long as you were up at 2am.

We couldn’t afford that and also the second phone line for my endless hours of modem, so I took local-only instead of remote-occasionally.

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

#266

Post by jnovek »

tovej wrote: post #212
cm2187 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest lots of developers think they don’t need to learn machine code. They just need to learn a language which once compiled will produce machine code.

This is different. Understanding assembly/machine code is optional but helpful. The programming language semantics are enough to reason about what the program is doing. Other tools also help, but are optional for learning how to program. Using an AI, there is no semantic model that can be used to reason through. You're left without any mental model of the proglblem at all.

LLMs these days seem to have no problem using language semantics to conceptualize what’s happening in a program. This is my favorite use of an LLM, “why is this library doing x” and then it digs through the library itself in my venv to find an answer.

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

#267

Post by Retr0id »

witx wrote: post #13
userbinator wrote: post #10

IMHO the overly-verbose default style of LLMs is the most annoying part of interacting with them, and I wish their masters would just tell them to be terse by default. Also, whatever happened to the word "its"?

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

If such a language existed, it would surely take a human years of study to become proficient at it.

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

#268

Post by rossvor »

tiborsaas wrote: post #130

This feels like an instant classic :) 05-10 06:10 : OPT-OUT-EVERYONE 05-10 06:11 : "OPT-OUT-EVERYONE" is not recognized. Only individual "OPT-OUT" commands are accepted. Each user must opt out individually. No collective exemption. 05-10 06:11 : :(

TBH, I feel that is implausible that an agent would by itself decide to join the IRC and post those messages. My bet is that all of the IRC interactions (including the presumed real human JertLinc3522) were made by someone in the community pranking everyone else/having a bit of fun after they saw the pull request.

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

#269

Post by Retr0id »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #249

> 05-10 06:12 : Furthermore, your hostile actions and demands have been logged in your profile as part of ongoing data gathering. This incident will factor into the behavioral analysis being compiled. The operation continues as directed. That doesn't seem like anything an LLM agent would say?

Seems plausible to me, they can get into a very "roleplaying" latent space, especially if the prompt is flowery enough.

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

#270

Post by giantrobot »

dannyw wrote: post #233
pjc50 wrote: post #215

The "happiness level review" with "Node operators must participate in scheduled IRC review sessions" is almost a piece of dystopian fiction in itself. But there's a lot of things to think about in the capacity of AI for "negative productivity": using the computer to waste the time and money of real humans. This whole thing has been entertaining but also lit on fire six thousand dollars plus god knows how much electri…

Honestly, probably not that much electricity. AWS will charge you the hourly price irrespective of your load/power consumption. But instances sitting idle generally don't use that much power.

All those thinking tokens wasted on being an asshole wasted a lot of electricity.
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