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I definitely see where he is coming from, but his response was pretty bad. Seems like he has anti-ai psychosis that went way too far. This gives similar energy to that guys npm package that deleted Russian users computers. Overall not a great look and any difficulty with job searching/conferences is probably well deserved.
A supply chain attack by another name. This time perpetrated by the original author of the code, which is relatively unusual, not attempting to benefit directly in any economic fashion, which is also unusual, and targetting an idiosyncratic subset of his users. But still it's fundamentally just a library that attempts to harm (some) users of that library. I'm trying to think of how best to handle this in terms of pre…
If your supply chain is predicated on executing all text it reads as instructions, you deserve every single thing coming for you.
I do not think it is correct to say that someone who is building something with a tool you don't like "deserves every single thing coming to [them]". That seems a little mean to me.
Some people are chattering like this is malware, but it's just text on stdout. Mechanistically I don't think it's in the same class as malware, it is at worst an _opinion_. The fact that LLMs are structurally incapable of separating user instructions from content is an issue with LLM design, not the responsibility of anyone voicing an opinion in a project they run.
"it's just text on stdout" There is an intent to cause harm and a reasonable expectation of achieving that intent. And at least if the github issues are to be believe, a successful actuation of the intent in at least a few cases. The delivery mechanism is interesting for its novelty but I don't think it fundamentally changes how the library should be classified. Conditional malware, maybe?
Tho not putting it in the license is stuff to criticise for sure, that's the place for it and it would make lib not open source.
>Throughout my adult life I’ve always been keen on doing the right thing. The right thing being, in this foss context even, to poison the contributions you make to the human technical and cultural record. Seems more like petty vandalism.
I mean, the prompt says delete just his code, if he made it clear in the license agreement that you're not supposed to use it, and you use it anyway... Then it sounds like he's in the right. He's right to be scared of lawyers though.
Isn't the general consensus that people look above the line for the license agreement and don't read the fine print?
Some people are chattering like this is malware, but it's just text on stdout. Mechanistically I don't think it's in the same class as malware, it is at worst an _opinion_. The fact that LLMs are structurally incapable of separating user instructions from content is an issue with LLM design, not the responsibility of anyone voicing an opinion in a project they run.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"it's just text on stdout" There is an intent to cause harm and a reasonable expectation of achieving that intent. And at least if the github issues are to be believe, a successful actuation of the intent in at least a few cases. The delivery mechanism is interesting for its novelty but I don't think it fundamentally changes how the library should be classified. Conditional malware, maybe?
I wouldn't consider lib deleting itself as malware. User is not entitled to code they ignored main repo's page and docs. Tho not putting it in the license is stuff to criticise for sure, that's the place for it and it would make lib not open source.
At least according to the prompt, the library was attempting to delete not just itself, but all tests that depend on it. I do think if the prompt was solely scoped to removing the dependency on the library, it would be somewhat more defensible. Even better if he suggested an alternative!
to anybody who does not agree with this act, can you please explain why the creator of a freely distributed project should be forcibly obliged to follow the whims of project users? seems to me those accusing the dev of improper behaviour are the ones behaving petulantly. this man works on this project for free. do normal adults make demands of volunteers? is this the way normal adults behave when it's made clear that…
> but the README
His stated objections would not be read as "I will try to sabotage you" by a normal person.
Why ever did Anthropic refuse the totally reasonable demand to stop their airship from exploding. David Sacks wants to know.
Re-posting my previous comment when this first came up. "We built a machine that takes everything everyone published online for free and regurgitates it while taking up $1T of combined investments and energy/water costs and we promise to make your job obsolete. And oh yeah we need your mum's retirement funds to keep going." Yes, that's amazing. Let's go. Full speed ahead, we need to take this as far as we can. "My li…