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AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

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Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#231

Post by dannyw »

Perz1val wrote: post #175
witx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's by default so you use all those tasty tokens. Kinda wish there was a deterministic, mostly terse, language to interact with computers

Kinda, more output tokens usually correlates with better benchmark scores. Ideally LLMs would keep that in their thinking section, then draft a response (what they write currently), then output something short. It'd consume even more tokens, but we wouldn't see that text

Most modern LLMs (especially frontier ones) are large token hogs because they draft, check, re-draft, the content (whether an output message; or a code diff) sometimes multiple times in the thinking block.

When you see a thinking summary like "Now writing the function..."; the raw thinking is actually writing the function in its internal thinking. Occasionally, the summariser misses and you get to see the raw text from models like Opus.

You can also try an open weight LLM like Qwen3.6 and see something that probably resembles the shape of frontier model thinking in some loose way.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#232

Post by moron4hire »

tovej wrote: post #213
blfr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I easily run whois, curl, dig, grep, python, browser/playwright? Yes. Was watching an agent with terminal access install its tools, configure them, then map my lab, find services, and guess stack just pure magic? Also yes. Did it cost me $23 in tokens to set it up, test, and run? Probably. Using gemini 3.1 pro was not the spendthrift choice here. Is putting some cost controls in place a good idea? Also, probably…

"Beautiful prompt"? Can't tell if this is parody. Either that, or it's someone without any self-awareness.

Post reads as English as a second language.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#233

Post by dannyw »

pjc50 wrote: post #215

The "happiness level review" with "Node operators must participate in scheduled IRC review sessions" is almost a piece of dystopian fiction in itself. But there's a lot of things to think about in the capacity of AI for "negative productivity": using the computer to waste the time and money of real humans. This whole thing has been entertaining but also lit on fire six thousand dollars plus god knows how much electri…

Honestly, probably not that much electricity. AWS will charge you the hourly price irrespective of your load/power consumption. But instances sitting idle generally don't use that much power.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#234

Post by lostlogin »

claudiosf1 wrote: post #207

Everything about this story, from the way it’s written to the self destructive outcome, reminds me of the “I hacked 127.0.0.1” episode from some twenty years ago. [1] a mirror since I couldn’t find the original: https://gist.github.com/Androkai/0a2602719fa72ce454d436bfe28...

That’s up there with the password story, hunter2.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#235

Post by lostlogin »

colinmarc wrote: post #227
claudiosf1 wrote: post #207

Everything about this story, from the way it’s written to the self destructive outcome, reminds me of the “I hacked 127.0.0.1” episode from some twenty years ago. [1] a mirror since I couldn’t find the original: https://gist.github.com/Androkai/0a2602719fa72ce454d436bfe28...

I would very much like to read the German, if anyone has it.

… Mainly for the swearing.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#236

Post by customguy »

colinmarc wrote: post #227
claudiosf1 wrote: post #207

Everything about this story, from the way it’s written to the self destructive outcome, reminds me of the “I hacked 127.0.0.1” episode from some twenty years ago. [1] a mirror since I couldn’t find the original: https://gist.github.com/Androkai/0a2602719fa72ce454d436bfe28...

I would very much like to read the German, if anyone has it.

here you go

https://archive.ph/1uTrd

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#237

Post by dijksterhuis »

Splinter_enth wrote: post #158
sdoering wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The irony here that if you ever do any kind of practical woodworking lessons or general hands on craft work, metal working, or any 3D, you will be encouraged to use hand-tools over bandsaws, etc. The reasoning being so you know the fundamentals of what you're trying to achieve with the more complex tools later on. It's always held true: You'll never get the most out of advanced tools unless you can 'do it by hand' so…

I studied computing at AS level in the UK (16-17 years old). I learned about: computer components (disks, memory, cpu), binary, ASCII, assembly and machine code. We programmed in Turbo Pascal. I then spent ten years doing non-computer things until I came back to a masters. I was one of the top students in my masters because i didn't need help with fundamentals. The other top student had previously made contributions to the linux kernel (even though he was a philosophy grad...).

The argument for having autonomous LLMs/Agents often ends up as "none of us need to know about assembly, why do i need to know about the code?".

I cringe every time I see this argument.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#238

Post by dannyw »

ivankra wrote: post #80
phoronixrly wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked visa prepaid cards were not accepted by any subscription service and by AWS

I had no problems subscribing to stuff through wise or revolut cards. Both are prepaid as far as I'm concerned - they won't let me spend above my account's balance.

AWS will likely write off most costs automatically, but if you truly do manage to rack up a $50k bill somehow, you're getting sent to collections and/or their legal team.

The terms you signed obligate you to pay your balance. Whether your credit card works or not doesn't negate your legal obligation.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#239

Post by Ekaros »

ghrl wrote: post #85
koliber wrote: post #49

I wonder how much money this agent wasted on the DN42 side? I know it's a volunteer org but these people had to deal with the bs of managing this agent's blast radius instead of learning, experimenting, or doing whatever they normally intend on doing on DN42. Tally it up and send a donation request to the agent operator.

I would assume that cost to be minimal, considering their PR never got merged. And if it were me I would consider that well worth the entertainment.

Also part of the process as whole. What if someone tries to attach us with insane amount of bandwidth is almost reasonable thought experiment at some point. Now it was this one. Can we handle it? How much could we handle? What is actually reasonable thing we could sustain. All somewhat interesting questions.

Re: AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

#240

Post by dannyw »

csomar wrote: post #224
dannyw wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more. I was playing around with AWS when I was probably 14 years old, with a credit card from my parents with consent, and a strict budget and the understanding that if I mess up and overspend, I'm getting disciplined. I learned a lot of stuff about networking, how AWS works (VPCs, IAM, CloudWatch, etc) from trial and error, and hobby projects like personal websites (free tier), hosting a Minecraf…

> strict budget How does that work in the case of AWS? Are you confusing alerts to caps?

I meant a strict budget given by my parents (and I could ask for more with justification). One of the valuable lessons I have learned is that there's no spending caps on AWS, but it taught me to set up billing alerts :)
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