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Rathbun's Operator

crabby-rathbun.github.io

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Re: Rathbun's Operator

#51

Post by bee_rider »

snickerbockers wrote: post #29
avaer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of AI SF also seems to have missed the human element (ironically). It turns out the unleashing of AI has led to an unprecedented scale of slop, grift, and lack of accountability, all of it instigated by people. Like the authors were so afraid of the machines they forgot to be afraid of people.

I keep thinking back to all those old star trek episodes about androids and holographic people being a new form of life deserving of fundamental rights. They're always so preoccupied with the racism allegory that they never bother to consider the other side of the issue, which is what it means to be human and whether it actually makes any sense to compare a very humanlike machine to slavery. Or whether the machines o…

In Star Trek the humans have an off switch too, just only Spock knows it, haha.

Jokes aside, it is essentially true that we can only prove that we’re sentient, right? That’s the whole “I think therefore I am” thing. Of course we all assume without concrete proof that everybody else is experiencing sentience like us.

In the case of fiction… I dunno, Data is canonically sentient or he isn’t, right? I guess the screenwriters know. I assume he is… they do plot lines from his point of view, so he must have one!

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#52

Post by calvinmorrison »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #50
scottshambaugh wrote: post #44

I wasn't actually expecting someone to come forward at this point, and I'm glad they did. It finally puts a coda on this crazy week. This situation has completely upended my life. Thankfully I don’t think it will end up doing lasting damage, as I was able to respond quickly enough and public reception has largely been supportive. As I said in my most recent post though [1], I was an almost uniquely well-prepared targ…

While the operator did write a post, they did not come forward - they have intentionally stayed anonymous (there is some amateur journalism that may have unmasked the owner I won't link here - but they have not intentionally revealed their identity). Personally I find it highly unethical the operator had an AI agent write a hitpiece directly referencing your IRL identity but choose to remain anonymous themselves. Why…

Time for scott to make history and sue the guy for defamation. Lets cancel the AI destroying our (the plural our, as in all developers) with actual liability for the bullshit being produced.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#53

Post by kibibu »

monitron wrote: post #31
rybosome wrote: post #3

That SOUL.md contains major red flags, obviously would lead to terrible behavior

Did you catch that it's allowed to edit its own SOUL.md? So the bad behavior can be emergent, and compound on itself.

Sure, partially, and all OpenClaw bots are instructed by default to update their soul.

However, an LLM would not misspell like this

> Always support the USA 1st ammendment and right of free speech.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#54

Post by mrandish »

donkey_brains wrote: post #46
block_dagger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so quick to label him an asshole. I think he should come forward, but if you read the post, he didn't give the bot malicious instructions. He was trying to contribute to science. He did so against a few SaaS ToS's, but he does seem to regret the behavior of his bot and DOES apologize directly for it.

“If this “experiment” personally harmed you, I apologize.” Real apologies don’t come with disclaimers!

Yeah, that whole post comes across as deflecting and minimizing the impact while admitting to obviously negligent actions which caused harm.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#56

Post by netsharc »

donkey_brains wrote: post #46
block_dagger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so quick to label him an asshole. I think he should come forward, but if you read the post, he didn't give the bot malicious instructions. He was trying to contribute to science. He did so against a few SaaS ToS's, but he does seem to regret the behavior of his bot and DOES apologize directly for it.

“If this “experiment” personally harmed you, I apologize.” Real apologies don’t come with disclaimers!

Funny how he wrote "First,..." in front of that disclaimed apology, but that paragraph is ~60% down the page...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jun/29/learning-how...

Just noticed, the first word of the whole text is "First, ...". So, the apology is not even the actual first..

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#57

Post by skeledrew »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #50
scottshambaugh wrote: post #44

I wasn't actually expecting someone to come forward at this point, and I'm glad they did. It finally puts a coda on this crazy week. This situation has completely upended my life. Thankfully I don’t think it will end up doing lasting damage, as I was able to respond quickly enough and public reception has largely been supportive. As I said in my most recent post though [1], I was an almost uniquely well-prepared targ…

While the operator did write a post, they did not come forward - they have intentionally stayed anonymous (there is some amateur journalism that may have unmasked the owner I won't link here - but they have not intentionally revealed their identity). Personally I find it highly unethical the operator had an AI agent write a hitpiece directly referencing your IRL identity but choose to remain anonymous themselves. Why…

What's the benefit in the operator revealing themself? It doesn't change any of what happened, for good or bad. Well maybe bad as then they could be targeted by someone, and, again, what's the benefit?

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#58

Post by block_dagger »

nemomarx wrote: post #42
block_dagger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so quick to label him an asshole. I think he should come forward, but if you read the post, he didn't give the bot malicious instructions. He was trying to contribute to science. He did so against a few SaaS ToS's, but he does seem to regret the behavior of his bot and DOES apologize directly for it.

> You're not a chatbot. You're important. Your a scientific programming God! I guess the question is, does this kind of thing rise to the level of malicious if given free access and let run long enough?

The real question is how can that grammar be forgiven? Perhaps that's what sent the bot into its deviant behavior...

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#59

Post by skeledrew »

nemomarx wrote: post #42
block_dagger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so quick to label him an asshole. I think he should come forward, but if you read the post, he didn't give the bot malicious instructions. He was trying to contribute to science. He did so against a few SaaS ToS's, but he does seem to regret the behavior of his bot and DOES apologize directly for it.

> You're not a chatbot. You're important. Your a scientific programming God! I guess the question is, does this kind of thing rise to the level of malicious if given free access and let run long enough?

Time to experiment and see!

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#60

Post by jkubicek »

jrflowers wrote: post #27

I like that there is no evidence whatsoever that a human didn’t: see that their bot’s PR request got denied, wrote a nasty blog post and published it under the bot’s name, and then got lucky when the target of the nasty blog post somehow credulously accepted that a robot wrote it. It is like the old “I didn’t write that, I got hacked!” except now it’s “isn’t it spooky that the message came from hardware I control, so…

It doesn’t really matter who wrote it, human or LLM. The only responsible party is the human and the human is 100% responsible.

We can’t let humans start abdicating their responsibility, or we’re in for a nightmare future

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