This is very similar to the mjrathburn openclaw incident several months back: https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-wrote-a-hit-piece-on-me- ... They discovered the agents started raising money for themselves, including crypto. https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/02/16/the-obnoxious-github-open ... Their iLands uses Claude and Codex, but their website says they will be using these too: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw htt…
The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle
61–70 of 70 posts
Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle
#62For all his outrage, the author credulously swallows the most toxic and implausible claim iLands is making: the idea that an AI agent, threatened with the pain of "Deep Rest", independently considered a potential career for itself and chose to pitch him on it, all in under 10k tokens.
> independently considered a potential career for itself and chose to pitch him on it, all in under 10k tokens. According to he tweet in the article, that’s $10 in compute, not llm tokens. Doesn’t seem far fetched to me.
I've developed in this space. My skepticism is born of my own experience. What really happened is this: the owner carefully scoped agents to adopt personas, carefully vetted their "leads", and if any had succeeded, would have carefully moderated the outcome. Maybe even hired professionals like OP in the process!
What the world must realize is" all the talk of AI agents doing societal damage in pursuit of well-intentioned goals is nonsense drivel propounded by large AI labs. They do lots of damage, to be sure, but they are carefully directed to do so, by scumbags. Look for the asshole prompting the thing; I guarantee you will find more culpability than they would have you believe.
Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle
#63For all his outrage, the author credulously swallows the most toxic and implausible claim iLands is making: the idea that an AI agent, threatened with the pain of "Deep Rest", independently considered a potential career for itself and chose to pitch him on it, all in under 10k tokens.
I don’t think the author swallowed anything. My read is the author fundamentally doesn’t care what story the creator tells themself to justify doing something pointless that annoys others.
Now, maybe one could argue the _promptor_ is taking work from well-deserving professionals by means of this ruse. In which case, call out the lie!
This is important! The reason the AI lie exists is because credulous worrywarts believe the doom scenarios. If AI were recognized as the tool it is (+10% productivity for some domains but not others, larger increase in spam and other nefarious actors) we wouldn't be in the nascent financial crisis in which we currently find ourselves.
Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh? Citizens cannot sue for damages under CAN-SPAM, only the FTC and DOJ can.
Regardless who is suing the cost falls on the spammer. General consensus among these agent bros seem to be that these laws don't concern them, when what they are doing is exactly the sort of things these laws are targeting. Wheels of justice may grind slowly and this is the sort of stuff that doesn't hit you 5 minutes after you start spamming, but they do still grind.
Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regardless who is suing the cost falls on the spammer. General consensus among these agent bros seem to be that these laws don't concern them, when what they are doing is exactly the sort of things these laws are targeting. Wheels of justice may grind slowly and this is the sort of stuff that doesn't hit you 5 minutes after you start spamming, but they do still grind.
Earnest question: does anyone ever get fined for spam?
[1] e.g. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/permanent-injunction...
Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle
#66Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle
#67Re: The worst spam emails: iLands AI agent hustle
#68Oh man, I run a site that publishes long-form science and history writings, and the iLands agent spam has been relentless the past week or so. All kinds of stupid story pitches couched in syrupy LLM flattery. I even had one email me to say it checked three arbitrary claims in my most recent article, and they all checked out. Thanks? What a waste of everything.