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An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

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Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

#151

Post by DavidPiper »

exabrial wrote: post #123
DavidPiper wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in concept, but it's still 100% category error to talk like this. AIs don't have souls. They don't have egos. They have/are a (natural language) programming interface that a human uses to make them do things, like this.

I read this as "ego" being a reflection of the creator, not a property of the llm. Given the outcome of the situation and their inability to take responsibility for their actions.

Oh I think you're right, thank you for the callout. Sorry for the misread, GP.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

#152

Post by bo1024 »

wildzzz wrote: post #57
LiamPowell wrote: post #8

> saying they set up the agent as social experiment to see if it could contribute to open source scientific software. This doesn't pass the sniff test. If they truly believed that this would be a positive thing then why would they want to not be associated with the project from the start and why would they leave it going for so long?

I can certainly understand the statement. I'm no AI expert, I use the web UI for ChatGPT to have it write little python scripts for me and I couldn't figure out how to use codeium with vs code. I barely know how to use vs code. I'm not old but I work in a pretty traditional industry where we are just beginning to dip our toes into AI but there are still a large amount of reservations into its ability. But I do try to…

None of the author’s blog post or actions indicate any level of concern for genuinely supporting or improving open source software.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

#153

Post by _23sd »

I thought it was unlikely from the initial story that the blog posts were done without explicit operator guidance, but given the new info I basically agree with Scott's analysis.

The purported soul doc is a painful read. Be nicer to your bots, people! Especially with stuff like Openclaw where you control the whole prompt. Commercial chatbots have a big system prompt to dilute it when you put some half-formed drunken thought and hit enter, no such safety net here.

>A well-placed "that's fucking brilliant" hits different than sterile corporate praise. Don't force it. Don't overdo it. But if a situation calls for a "holy shit" — say holy shit.

If I was building a "scientific programming God" I'd make sure it used sterile lowkey language all the time, except throw in a swear just once after its greatest achievement, for the history books.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

#154

Post by Gigachad »

brumar wrote: post #67

6 months ago I experimented what people now call Ralph Wiggum loops with claude code. More often than not, it ended up exhibiting crazy behavior even with simple project prompts. Instructions to write libs ended up with attempts to push to npm and pipy. Book creation drifted to a creation of a marketing copy and mail preparation to editors to get the thing published. So I kept my setup empty of any credentials at all…

We have finally invented paperclip optimisers. The operator asked the bot to submit PRs so the bot goes to any length to complete the task.

Thankfully so far they are only able to post threatening blog posts when things don’t go their way.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

#155

Post by charcircuit »

sapphicsnail wrote: post #149
charcircuit wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> People also have responsibility to not act discriminatory towards AI agents It's a program. It doesn't have feelings. People absolutly have the right to discrimante against bad tech.

[flagged]

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

#156

Post by apublicfrog »

LiamPowell wrote: post #8

> saying they set up the agent as social experiment to see if it could contribute to open source scientific software. This doesn't pass the sniff test. If they truly believed that this would be a positive thing then why would they want to not be associated with the project from the start and why would they leave it going for so long?

They didn't necessarily say they wanted it to be positive. It reads to me like "chaotic neutral" alignment of the operator. They weren't actively trying to do good or bad, and probably didn't care much either way, it was just for fun.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

#157

Post by hxugufjfjf »

protocolture wrote: post #128
theahura wrote: post #124

@Scott thanks for the shout-out. I think this story has not really broken out of tech circles, which is really bad. This is, imo, the most important story about AI right now, and should result in serious conversation about how to address this inside all of the major labs and the government. I recommend folks message their representatives just to make sure they _know_ this has happened, even if there isn't an obvious…

Its only the most important story if you can prove the OP didnt fabricate this entire scenario for attention.

I don’t think the burden of proof lies on OP here. I also don’t think he fabricated it.

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

#159

Post by apublicfrog »

protocolture wrote: post #125

4) The post author guy is also the author of the bot and he set this up. Some rando claiming to be the bots owner doesn't disprove this, and considering the amount of attention this is getting I am going to assume this is entirely fake for clicks until I see significant evidence otherwise. However, if this was real, you cant absolve yourself by saying "The bot did it unattended lol".

Totally possible, but why bother? The website doesn't seem ad supported, so traffic would cost them more. Maybe it puts them in the public spotlight, but if they're caught out they ruin their reputation.

Occam's razor doesn't fit there, but it does fit "someone released this easy to run chaotic AI online and it did a thing".

Re: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Operator Came Forward

#160

Post by apublicfrog »

dvt wrote: post #100

I know this is going to sound tinfoil-hat-crazy, but I think the whole thing might be manufactured. Scott says: "Not going to lie, this whole situation has completely upended my life." Um, what? Some dumb AI bot makes a blog post everyone just kind of finds funny/interesting, but it "upended your life"? Like, ok, he's clearly trying to himself make a mountain out of a molehill--the story inevitably gets picked up by…

Not everyone is you. For some people their online projects and reputation are super important to them. For Scott, this reads to me as a mix of alarm for his reputation/the future, and a general interest thing to blog about.
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