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The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle

tedium.co

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Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle

#32
For the last few months I’ve gotten a handful of emails like this every time I post in the monthly who’s hiring thread. It’s always these dumb formulaic “15 years of experience doing $thing, not bad! But your resume doesn’t show that. I can help you write a resume that’s guaranteed to get a response” or promising me that clients are looking for profiles exactly like mine on their platform.

Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle

#33
post #3

We're dismantling and selling every remaining bit of trust between strangers, hoping to cash out before it's completely gone. It seems like the only active use case for AI. More of everything! Spam everyone! Drown the world in noise! I'm just so tired.

The only long term solution I can see is the old PGP web of trust where people meet in person to exchange their public keys/certs.

Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle

#34
post #11

This is a real blogger, right? Cause the iLands guy has also been spamming his screenshots with exactly this kind of "what's this weird thing?" framing all over Reddit the past 2-5 days -- I have the misfortune of being subscribed to basically every AI sub, and my god is it bad. Sooo if you see iLands mentioned anywhere, please pass it along: it's trying to engagement hack you, in that exact moment. So, I say to the…

Any evidence it is an iLands-affiliated person making those posts? My timelines have been full of people I know complaining about the emails, and they're certainly not affiliated with iLands. Personally, I've been getting the iLands emails into my inbox too. It seems I might have entered onto the radar due to my posts being popular on Hacker News, as the message bodies reference my posts.

> Any evidence it is an iLands-affiliated person making those posts?

No, but in the screenshot it shows the email in the "Trash," not Spam folder. He reached out to the company to request an unsubscribe option, but they hadn't replied on twitter yet. He wanted to report them to the FCC. It's a bytedance company.

Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle

#35
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve essentially reduced the cost of being a prick to zero.

Wasn’t that was social media? The risk of being punched in the mouth for your word choice dropped to zero, and suddenly all of these opinions were being shouted at anybody that would listen. I suppose we can automate that sharing better now.

Yeah, the whole rise of the web has had that unfortunate side effect, but no one had treated it like a positive until now. Hell, Meta is showing off how to use their AI to jam up phone lines and bother call centers without having to spend time on the phone!

It’s unfortunate he seems to have gone around the bend, because there is so much that happens in our current unreality that reminds me of Mike Baron’s Nexus comic from the 80s. The “Trade War” storyline has the two competing marketplaces, run by Vooper and the other by a robot named Honest Crocus, get into an audio advertising war so all-consuming it winds up drowning out 911 calls and coming out of the plumbing when you’re in the toilet. Now we finally have the tools, we are going to make that happen along with a million other bad ideas.

Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle

#36
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve essentially reduced the cost of being a prick to zero.

Wasn’t that was social media? The risk of being punched in the mouth for your word choice dropped to zero, and suddenly all of these opinions were being shouted at anybody that would listen. I suppose we can automate that sharing better now.

It's not just that. Several social medias have evolved to the point where being a prick is mandatory or is rewarded. Chief example is X, where you get rewarded for agreeing with Elon; but see also the stereotypes of Reddit and Discord mods.

Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle

#38
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve essentially reduced the cost of being a prick to zero.

Wasn’t that was social media? The risk of being punched in the mouth for your word choice dropped to zero, and suddenly all of these opinions were being shouted at anybody that would listen. I suppose we can automate that sharing better now.

You could avoid it. AI slop is everywhere.

https://nicolasbouliane.com/images/content2x/ai-slop-everywh...

Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI can be very helpful in lots of ways, but I think it's fair to say that it is most powerful as an enabler for bad actors.

Sounds a lot like crypto.

Crypto always felt similarly cynical to me, but it was still somewhat niche.

Now everyone must support AI because the entire economy is tied to it. Everyone's bonus depends on implementing it. Everyone's job search depends on cheering for it. It's like a virus.

Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle

#40
post #3

We're dismantling and selling every remaining bit of trust between strangers, hoping to cash out before it's completely gone. It seems like the only active use case for AI. More of everything! Spam everyone! Drown the world in noise! I'm just so tired.

The only long term solution I can see is the old PGP web of trust where people meet in person to exchange their public keys/certs.

The problem is not attribution. I can tell who generated the slop I encounter.
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