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...
There is also the true story from the first Scientology vs. Internet clash, someone trolled them that their files were being hosted on 127.0.0.1, under a court ordered deposition they tried to find out who was running this server with their secret files (because yes, they'd looked, and they were there)
AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
341–350 of 575 posts
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#342https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240320183846.19475-1-lasse.co...
I can't quite put my finger on why but the entire time I was reading this I kept thinking back to that. It's entirely possible the actual targets were the volunteers and everything else was superfluous or tertiary. It's also an exception that proves the rule with regard to Hanlon's Razor.
They even mentioned the stated goal of it was more or less pointless. I wouldn't be suprised if the "owner" they spoke with was still just the LLM. It stuck around for just long enough to convince everyone that they succeeded in suckering the LLM and had achieved all their stated objectives.
No more reason to investigate the incident at all and no need to question why literally nothing made any sense or how the owner could simultaneously be as inept as they were made out to be and able to afford all those resources while giving the LLM effectively a blank check.
It'll be interesting to see if the volunteers for this project are subjected to the same Zersetzung and psychological attacks as the XZ devs were.
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#343And so war begins :p ! I thought conflict would take a little bit longer, maybe even AIs with agency. More seriously though, I wonder if the future is about low-intensity conflict between humans and AIs, punctuated by high-intensity escalations, until the Machines wipe us all, or we set up some rather draconian covenants that forbid people from building AIs, innovating on electronics and algorithms, and even, for goo…
I think the answer may be good AI to counter the iffy AI, like with AI agents making requests your own AI can talk to them.
In Dune it seems they nuke the Earth but that seems a bit excessive.
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#344Earlier 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.
When you have no mental model of the machine running your code or what the physical implications of code mean, you fundamentally lack the ability to reason or care about performance. "Works on my machine" is the original vibecoding.
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#345Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s up there with the password story, hunter2.
I miss bash.org. Now excuse me, I have a cyber date, and I need to put on my robe and wizard hat.
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#347Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of people seem to think that you don't need to learn how to [scan a network], all you need to learn in this brave new world is how to prompt the agent to [scan a network]. Replace the content in brackets with anything.
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.
What if your compiler could be fooled by some other developers into spending thousands of dollars, and still not produce the desired machine code in the end?
Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42
#349This whole fiasco could have been prevented had the operator included "Make no mistakes" in the prompt.