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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

#191

Post by hvb2 »

kingstnap wrote: post #105
elashri wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a corporate does something good, a lot of executives and people inside will go and claim credit and will demand/take bounces. If something bad happened against any laws, even if someone got killed, we don't see them in jail. I don't defend both positions, I am just saying that is not far from how the current legal framework works.

Well the important concept missing there that makes everything sort of make sense is due diligence. If your company screws up and it is found out that you didn't do your due diligence then the liability does pass through. We just need to figure out a due diligence framework for running bots that makes sense. But right now that's hard to do because Agentic robots that didn't completely suck are just a few months old.

> If your company screws up and it is found out that you didn't do your due diligence then the liability does pass through.

In theory, sure. Do you know many examples? I think, worst case, someone being fired is the more likely outcome

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

#192

Post by _carbyau_ »

hxugufjfjf wrote: post #150
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This already happens every single time when there is a security breach and private information is lost. We take your privacy and security very seriously. There is no evidence that your data has been misused. Out of an abundance of caution… We remain committed to... will continue to work tirelessly to earn ... restore your trust ... confidence.

What else would you see them do or say beyond this canned response? The reason I am asking is because people almost always bring up how dissatisfied they are with such apologies, yet I’ve never seen a good alternative that someone would be happy with. I don’t work in PR or anything, just curious if there is a better way.

Lose money accordingly - fines, penalties, recompense to victims, whatever... - so they then take the seriousness of security into account.

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

#193

Post by no-name-here »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #145
touristtam wrote: post #38

Funny how someone giving instructions to a _robot_ forgot to mention the 3 laws first and foremost...

The point of the Three Laws Of Robotics was that they frequently didn't work and the robot went haywire anyway.

But the three laws are incredibly strong compared to what exists today. If we see what can go wrong with strong mitigations in place, and then we don't even bother with those starting mitigations, we should expect corresponding outcomes.

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

#194

Post by eru »

cj wrote: post #112
eru wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If something bad happened against any laws, even if someone got killed, we don't see them in jail. We do! In many jurisdictions, there are lots of laws that pierce the corporate veil.

its surprisingly easy to get away with murder (literally and figuratively) without piercing the corporate veil if you understand the rules of the game. Running decisions through a good law firm also “helps” a lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil

Eh, in the US you don't even need a company nor a lawyer, a car is enough.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1q9xx1/is_it_ok... or similar discussions: basically, when you run over someone in a car, statistically they will call it an accident and you get away scot-free.

In any case, you are right that often people in cars or companies get away with things that seem morally wrong. But not always.

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

#195

Post by retsibsi »

apublicfrog wrote: post #167
gwbas1c wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That was always kind of a cruel attitude, because real people's emotions were at stake. (I'm not accusing you personally of malice, obviously, but the distinction you're drawing was often used to justify genuinely nasty trolling.)

Nowadays it just seems completely detached from reality, because internet stuff is thoroughly blended into real life. People's social, dating, and work lives are often conducted online as much as they are offline (sometimes more). Real identities and reputations are formed and broken online. Huge amounts of money are earned, lost, and stolen online. And so on and so on

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

#196

Post by jbotz »

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".

Improbable, the OP is a long-time maintainer of a significant piece of open source software and this whole thing unfolded in public view step by step from the initial PR until this post. If it had been faked there would be smells you could detect with the clarity of hindsight going back over the history and there aren't.

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

#197

Post by ZaoLahma »

rixed wrote: post #165

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…

This will be a fun little evolution of botnets - AI agents running (un?)supervised on machines maintained by people who have no idea that they're even there.

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

#198

Post by superjan »

lynndotpy wrote: post #30

> Again I do not know why MJ Rathbun decided based on your PR comment to post some kind of takedown blog post, This wording is detached from reality and conveniently absolves responsibility from the person who did this. There was one decision maker involved here, and it was the person who decided to run the program that produced this text and posted it online. It's not a second, independent being. It's a computer pro…

This slide from a 1979* IBM presentation captures it nicely:

https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D4D22AQGsDUHW1i52jA/fee...

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

#199

Post by TheCapeGreek »

rixed wrote: post #165

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…

Isn't this part of the default soul.md?

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

#200

Post by _carbyau_ »

palmotea wrote: post #161
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 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 sou…

It lives in the cloud!

..

marketing does what it does.

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