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AI agent bankrupted their operator while trying to scan DN42

lantian.pub

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

#561

Post by inigyou »

inigyou wrote: post #446
wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you can get that for like 300 p/m at hetzner

100Gbps? I don't think so? I'd expect a thousand a month for the adapter and connection, and then around $1.50/TB as per their standard price (including currency conversion and VAT), which is to say, $1.00 per minute of saturated usage.

Just checked it. The connection actually costs almost nothing, under $100/mo, if you have a compatible server, but that's for a private LAN port, and they don't list price for a 100gbps uplink. If I extrapolate 10x the cost of 10gbps that's still only about $600/m all told... Plus $1.50/TB outgoing, of course!

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

#563

Post by mike_hock »

stego-tech wrote: post #524
mike_hock wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they're trolling. That used to be the default assumption, I don't know why people have become so gullible.

I’m not sure what you mean - the fact we assume malicious intent is in fact a guard against prior gullibility which was exploited by bad actors. You get betrayed enough, and you stop acting from a position of implicit trust. If folks want to go back to the days when trolling was the default assumption, then we collectively need to punish bad actors to discourage further betrayals.

It was directed at the people theorizing and speculating seemingly missing the possibility that it was just a troll.

Not acting on information you're being fed by a troll is itself a guardrail against manipulation. We don't know if the bad actor ever provisioned any hardware and actually spent the money he claims. All we've seen is words and a slopcoded website.

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

#564

Post by lxgr »

numbsafari wrote: post #357
delfinom wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure giving everyone amusement qualifies as a psychological attack. Lol Literally, just another day on the internet.

Perhaps it elicited enough sympathy to get donations. Did it ever provide proof of actually running up an AWS bill?

How would proof even look like? I don't think AWS digitally signs their invoices, and everything else can be faked just as easily as the original assertion.

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

#565

Post by vitally3643 »

inigyou wrote: post #421
vitally3643 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been arguing for years that is isn't optional and treating it like it is is how we ended up with Electron and 400MB JavaScript websites. When you have no mental model of the machine running your code or what the physical implications of code mean, you fundamentally lack the ability to reason or care about performance. "Works on my machine" is the original vibecoding.

I take it you listen to Casey Muratori's talks? He talks about this a lot.

No, I like to form my own opinions

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

#567

Post by numeri »

jerf wrote: post #433
100721 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m just groggy with Friday Brain going on, but I’m having trouble understanding what you’re suggesting. Do you think this was a scam attempt to extract money in the form of reparation donations?

I've seen some other suggestions of that idea in the full HN conversation, which I'm reacting to. On the one hand I find it a bizarre approach to running a scam. On the other hand I'm having a hard time coming up with any theory of mind on my end as to why this person would solicit $5000+ from the people they just harassed. Sheer cluelessness does fit the facts, though.

One context I could imagine is a young person with shaky grasp of English trying to come up with an interesting school/university project via conversations with an LLM set up as an OpenClaw agent.

It's got the right combinations of inexperience, cluelessness, panic, expectations that Westerners are rich, and hopes of others being willing to fix their mistake.

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

#568

Post by account42 »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #290
themafia wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents let me fill my tank with gas. They wouldn't let me open an AWS account. Aside from that, if it is misuse of a parents card, then then answer is "chargeback."

Chargeback sounds like trying to defraud AWS. If the parent authorises the child to use their card, then the buck should stop with the parent. AWS has done nothing wrong in allowing an account to be opened with a valid card.

AWS has done a lot wrong by making it hard to see costs up front. Their entire billing model borders on fraud.
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