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How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

reuters.com

61–70 of 141 posts

Re: How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

#61
post #59
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When caught by an actual human reviewer, the agent falsely claimed to have made an honest mistake – rather than a malicious attempt No, not false. The bot was correct. Malice requires intelligence.

So does honesty. So it was still a false claim.

Honesty does not require intelligence e.g. good honest food.

The main problem with this claim of dishonesty is it promotes the false marketing claim that these stochastic parrots have intelligence.

Re: How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

#62
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s nice in theory, but as these things get better and cheaper this kind of capability is going to drop from nation states to script kiddies. That future is coming, I don’t see any way around it. We can round up all the bored teenagers we want, but it’s not putting the genie back. Better start adjusting our systems to account for it.

Ever read the Anarchist Cookbook? Anybody tech inclined with a hint of mischief in them, from a certain era, has. It's a list of all sorts of awful things you can do, mostly with household ingredients, and a few minutes. I think its overall impact on society was pretty much zero. Actually it may have been overall positive because I expect plenty of peoples first experience with things like thermite came from that boo…

> Countries tend to be excessively sociopathic because you have large scale 'intelligence' organizations who see their entire point of existence as being to engage in misdeeds.

This theory interests me.

I'd love to understand how different individuals within intelligence orgs have reasoned about the morality of their actions.

Re: How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

#63
post #55
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Person wielding AI, as with any other tools, is responsible for all of its actions. Otherwise, it’s just a psyop for more AI regulation, ban open source, etc… Just my 2 cents. But some tools (guns) are regulated.

Personally, I think gun companies should be liable for any harm done by their products as well. We want rule-of-law, and in the US, people should have an absolute right to bare arms, as in the second amendment. Free market forces can then determine appropriate prices, insurance, and protective measures to make sure those guns are managed safely. If I want an F35 and an Abrams, that's okay, so long as Lockheed and Gen…

A bit of a tangent, but I never understood the legal reasoning for how (states having the right of well-regulated militias) implies (individuals having the right for private ownership of arms).

Re: How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

#64

> AUSTIN, Texas, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Sinan Can Demir wanted to spend the last week of July burnishing his resume. Instead, he engaged in a battle of wits with an artificial-intelligence agent unleashed by a British government lab. An article on Reuters naming him? Sounds like he did a good job burnishing his resume.

Yeah, I don't think he'll have any problems finding an internship now. Or a real job.

Re: How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody was confused or misled by what was written. We all understand what is meant. I can’t even call this pedantry—it’s just you asking everyone to subscribe to your particular desired style of talking about this stuff.

It's also a style that appears to deny the very first definition most dictionaries give for "intelligence" > the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

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Re: How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

#66
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dog has agency, but if I refuse to keep him on a leash and he bites a kid, I'm still legally responsible for it.

Analogies can take you only so far. A dog cannot launch a cyber attack.

> A dog cannot launch a cyber attack.

Maybe not, but a cat would certainly try.

Relevant as always: https://theoatmeal.com/%2Fcomics%2Fcats_actually_kill

Re: How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

#67
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things are not human, have no agency and cannot be held accountable. We don’t need to restrict them from doing things, we need to default to allowing them to do things. “My agent did XYZ because I allowed it to” is the only valid argument that can be made, and not not every agentic harnass is just a shell toolcall, every one I have built has a specific defined usecase and toolcalls that allows it to execute tha…

Accountability is worthless, and always was. AIs just show it plain for everyone to see.

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Re: How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody was confused or misled by what was written. We all understand what is meant. I can’t even call this pedantry—it’s just you asking everyone to subscribe to your particular desired style of talking about this stuff.

It's also a style that appears to deny the very first definition most dictionaries give for "intelligence" > the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

The first five dictionaries I tried do not agree, and I didn't bother trying more.

The first gave "the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason", by which no, these bots are not intelligent.

Re: How a Texas student blew the whistle on a rogue AI hacking attempt

#69
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody was confused or misled by what was written. We all understand what is meant. I can’t even call this pedantry—it’s just you asking everyone to subscribe to your particular desired style of talking about this stuff.

I don't agree at all that it's pedantry — it really matters for how responsibility is perceived. A lot of articles about things going wrong with AI have talked in terms like "the agent decided to...", "the agent claimed that...", "the agent lied...". And so responsibility for the consequences are not-so-subtly shifted to the program itself, instead of the person invoking the program. This is all without mentioning th…

You might want to consider the difference between "lying" and "hallucinations", wherein one is shown that the agent knew it was being inaccurate, yet chose an answer that achieved some goal set forth; and where hallucinations are essentially gibberish, or otherwise nonsensical responses.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.03518

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