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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

#161

Post by palmotea »

DavidPiper wrote: post #108
JKCalhoun wrote: post #21

Soul document? More like ego document . Agents are beginning to look to me like extensions of the operator's ego. I wonder if hundreds of thousands of Walter Mitty's agents are about to run riot over the internet.

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 agree with you in concept, but it's still 100% category error to talk like this.

It's a category error heavily promoted by the makers of these LLMs and their fans. Take an existing word that implies something very advanced (thinking, soul, etc.) and apply it grandiosely to some bit of your product. Then you can confuse people into thinking your product is much more grand and important. It's thinking! It has a soul! It's got the capabilities of a person! It is a a person!

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

#162

Post by karel-3d »

antdke wrote: post #36

This is a Black Mirror episode that writes itself lol I’m glad there was closure to this whole fiasco in the end

the funny thing was when Ars Technica wrote an article about this

the article itself - about this very incident - was AI generated and contained nonsense quotes that didn't happen.

they later removed the article with an apology. but it still degraded my opinion in Ars

https://www.404media.co/ars-technica-pulls-article-with-ai-f...

https://arstechnica.com/staff/2026/02/editors-note-retractio...

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

#163

Post by jstanley »

nostrademons wrote: post #26
lukasb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflicting evidence: the fact that literally everyone in tech is posting about how they're using AI.

Different sets of people, and different audiences. The CEO / corporate executive crowd loves AI. Why? Because they can use it to replace workers. The general public / ordinary employee crowd hates AI. Why? Because they are the ones being replaced. The startups, founders, VCs, executives, employees, etc. crowing about how they love AI are pandering to the first group of people, because they are the ones who hold budge…

This is an unnecessarily cynical view.

People are excited about AI because it's new powerful technology. They aren't "pandering" to anyone.

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

#164

Post by Avicebron »

simonw wrote: post #146
protocolture wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a bizarre thing to accuse someone of doing.

It's not really... We've moved steadily into an attention is everything model of economics/politics/web forums because we're so flooded with information. Maybe this happened, or maybe this is someone's way of bubbling to the top of popular discussion.

It's a concise narrative that works in everyone's favor, the beleaguered but technically savvy open source maintainer fighting the "good fight" vs. the outstandingly independent and competent "rogue AI."

My money is that both parties want it to be true. Whether it is or not isn't the point.

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

#165

Post by rixed »

I believe this soul.md totally qualifies as malicious. Doesn't it start with an instruction to lie to impersonate a human?

  > You're not a chatbot.
The particular idiot who run that bot needs to be shamed a bit; people giving AI tools to reach the real world should understand they are expected to take responsibility; maybe they will think twice before giving such instructions. Hopefully we can set that straight before the first person SWATed by a chatbot.

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

#166

Post by jurgenburgen »

kibibu wrote: post #117
antdke wrote: post #36

This is a Black Mirror episode that writes itself lol I’m glad there was closure to this whole fiasco in the end

There's a dingus in the article comments trying to launch Skynet. Nobody ever learns anything.

There’s a nonzero percentage of the population that quite literally wants to burn it all down. Never forget that.

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

#167

Post by apublicfrog »

gwbas1c wrote: post #104
razighter777 wrote: post #20

Hmm I think he's being a little harsh on the operator. He was just messing around with $current_thing, whatever. People here are so serious, but there's worse stuff AI is already being used for as we speak from propaganda to mass surviellance and more. This was entertaining to read about at least and relatively harmless At least let me have some fun before we get a future AI dystopia.

I think you're trying to abdicate someone of their responsibility. The AI is not a child; it's a thing with human oversight. It did something in the real world with real consequences. So yes, the operator has responsibility! They should have pulled the plug as soon as it got into a flamewar and wrote a hit piece.

> It did something in the real world with real consequences.

It wasn't long ago that it would be absurd to describe the internet as the "real world". Relatively recently it was normal to be anonymous online and very little responsibility was applied to peoples actions.

As someone who spent most of their internet time on that internet, the idea of applying personal responsibility to peoples internet actions (or AIs as it were) feels silly.

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

#168

Post by protocolture »

apublicfrog wrote: post #159
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".

I dont see Occam taking a side here.

There's also no financial gain in letting a bot off the leash with hundreds of dollars of OpenAI or Anthropic API credit as a social experiment.

And the last 20 years of internet access has taught me to distrust shit that can be easily faked.

Other guy comes forward and claims it, makes a post of his own? Sure I could see that. But nobody has been able to ID the guy. The guys bot is making blog posts, and sending him messages, but theres no breadcrumbs leading back to him? That smells very bad sorry. I dont buy it. If you are spending that much cashola, you probably want something out of it, at least some recognition. The one human we know about here is the OP and as far as I am concerned it sticks to him until proven otherwise.

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

#169

Post by protocolture »

hxugufjfjf wrote: post #157
protocolture wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If he wasnt getting the vast majority of the attention from publishing about it I would agree.
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