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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

#471

Post by UncleMeat »

brainwad wrote: post #391
Attrecomet wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? You're still responsible for the output, even if you yourself think you can hide behind "well, it was the computer, no way for me to control that"

I don't think that's true, actually. You aren't responsible for things that can't be reasonably foreseen, usually. There are a few strict liability offences in criminal law, but libel isn't one of them. We don't make everything strict liability because it would stifle people's lives. I don't think a reasonable person would have expected this outcome, so the owner of the bot is off the hook; though obviously _now_ it'…

Morally responsible.

"Well, it isn't a crime to stand up a robot that hurts people" is not exactly my idea of a compelling defense.

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

#472

Post by zephen »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #470
zephen wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stopping the anthropomorphization of AIs is kind of like fighting a trademark battle. Every time a perceived misuse is noticed, action must be taken! The difference is that the action is taken, for free, by a concerned citizen, rather than by a corporate lawyer. The outcome will be the same. Xerox and kleenex are practically public domain, and AIs will be anthropomorphized. Given that humans have been ascribing inten…

To amplify: It's also potentially lethally stupid. What if an industrial robot arm decides to smash a €10000 expensive machine next door, or -heaven forbid- a human's skull. "It didn't really decide to do anything, stop anthropomorphising, let's blame the poor operator with his trembling fist on the e-stop." Yeah, to heck with that. If you're one of those people (and you know who you are); you're overcompensating. We…

All excellent points.

Unfortunately, your most excellent point:

> Policing language is not productive

goes against the grain here. Policing language is the one thing that our corporate overlords have gotten the right and the left to agree on. (Sure, they disagree on the details, but the first amendment is in graver danger now than it has been for a long time.)

https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin...

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

#473

Post by Kim_Bruning »

kypro wrote: post #6

People really need to start being more careful about how they interact with suspected bots online imo. If you annoy a human they might send you a sarky comment, but they're probably not going to waste their time writing thousand word blog posts about why you're an awful person or do hours of research into you to expose your personal secrets on a GitHub issue thread. AIs can and will do this though with slightly slopp…

This amuses me in a horrible kind of way. Saying that people need to learn to be polite to bots else consequences.

On the upside, it does mean they'll more likely be polite to everyone. Maybe it's a net win.

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

#474

Post by brainwad »

UncleMeat wrote: post #471
brainwad wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true, actually. You aren't responsible for things that can't be reasonably foreseen, usually. There are a few strict liability offences in criminal law, but libel isn't one of them. We don't make everything strict liability because it would stifle people's lives. I don't think a reasonable person would have expected this outcome, so the owner of the bot is off the hook; though obviously _now_ it'…

Morally responsible. "Well, it isn't a crime to stand up a robot that hurts people" is not exactly my idea of a compelling defense.

I don't think you are morally responsible for unforeseeable consequences, either. Here the law follows the common moral intuition.

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

#475

Post by kuboble »

tovej wrote: post #302
kuboble wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what is your bubble, but I'm a regular programmer and I'm absolutely excited even if a little uncomfortable. I know a lot of people who are the same.

Interesting, every developer I've spoken to is extremely skeptical and has not found any actual productivity boosts. Ok that's not true. I know one junior who is very excited, but considering his regular code quality I would not put much weight on his opinion.

I mean there are two different things. One is whether there are actual productivity boosts right now. And the second is the excitement about the technology.

I am definitely more productive. A lot of this productivity is wasted on stuff I probably shouldn't be writing anyways. But since using coding agent, I'm both more productive at my day job and I'm building so many small hobby projects that I would have never found time for otherwise.

But the main topic of discussion in this thread is the excitement about technology. And I have a bit mixed feelings, because on one hand side I feel like a turkey being excited for the Thanksgiving. On the other hand, I think the programming future is bright. there will be so much more software build and for a lot of that you will still need programmers.

My excitement comes from the fact that I can do so much more things that I wouldn't even think about being able to do a few months ago.

Just as an example, in last month I have used the agents to add features to the applications I'm using daily. Text editor, podcast application, Android keyboard. The agents were capable to fork, build, and implement a feature I asked for in a project where I have no idea about the technology. Iif I were hired to do those features, I would be happy if I implemented them after two weeks on the job. With an agent, I get tailor made features in half of a morning. Spending less than ten minutes prompting.

I am building educational games for my kids. They learn a new topic at school? Let me quickly vibe the game to make learning it fun. A project that wouldn't be worth my weekend, but is worth 15 minutes. https://kuboble.com/math/games/snake/index.html?mode=multipl...

So I'm excited because I think coding agents will be for coding what pencil and paper were for writing.

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

#476

Post by saturnite »

pibaker wrote: post #412
ljm wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never advocate for torches and pitchforks, I've been close to victims of that in the past. It is, however, concerning that the owner of that bot could passively absolve themselves of any responsibility. The anonymity in that sense is irrelevant except that is used as a shield for failure.

There is a class of YouTube "content creators" who like to point out "cringe" individuals on the internet online for others to laugh at. They will often add a disclaimer to their videos saying "hey please don't go and harass this person, pinky promise!" But it never works. A hoard of internet randos will descend on the individual to say the most nasty words. When the YouTuber is pressed he or she will just say "I wou…

Then there's the next level of content creators that only post videos about the original content creators who are behaving badly. They will report on their behavior and any repercussions. Some do it like they are reporting the news. It stokes the fire when these people should be ignored.

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

#477

Post by tovej »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #360
tovej wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the big tech companies is literally run be THE asshole from twitter. So I don't necessarily believe there's much of a distinction.

Then the others should also not be shielded from criticism instead of focusing only on the one you personally dislike, or his social media. There is plenty of toxic behavior on other platforms, especially Reddit and Bluesky, to name a few. That does not excuse the one coming from X, but the opposite is also true.

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying there's an overlap between tech oligarch and internet losers

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

#478

Post by tovej »

jstanley wrote: post #401
tovej wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume those people are managers, have a vested interest in AI, or have only just started programming.

How would you find out if you were wrong? You're presented with hundreds of people that prove you wrong, and your response is "no, I assume I'm right"?

This is obviously a rhetorical statement. I'm not claiming a categorical fact, but a fuzzy one.

Most of these peoples are managers, investors, or junior.

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

#479

Post by tovej »

gtr wrote: post #419
tovej wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, every developer I've spoken to is extremely skeptical and has not found any actual productivity boosts. Ok that's not true. I know one junior who is very excited, but considering his regular code quality I would not put much weight on his opinion.

I am using AI a lot to do tasks that just would not get done because they would take too long. Also, getting it to iterate on a React web application meant I can think about what I want it to do rather than worry about all the typing I would have to do. Especially powerful when moving things around, hand-written code has a "mental load" to move that telling an AI to do it does not. Obviously not everything is 100% bu…

Why do you need to move things around? And how is that difficult?

Surely you have an LSP in your editor and are able to use sed? I've never had moving files take more than fifteen minutes (for really big changes), and even then most of the time is spent thinking about where to move things.

LLM's have been reported to specifically make you "feel" productive without actually increasing your productivity.

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