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Rathbun's Operator

crabby-rathbun.github.io

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Re: Rathbun's Operator

#71

Post by anonymars »

zozbot234 wrote: post #67
KPGv2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These bots are just as human as any piece of human-made art, or any human-made monument. No one considers human-made art or human-made monuments to be human. > You wouldn't desecrate any of those things, we hold that to be morally wrong You will find a large number of people (probably the vast majority) will disagree, and instead say "if I own this art, I can dispose of it as I wish." Indeed, I bet most people have…

> No one considers human-made art or human-made monuments to be human. How can art not be human, when it's a human creation? That seems self-contradictory. > They can't vote... They get a vote where it matters, though. For example, the presence of a historic building can be the decisive "vote" on whether an area can be redeveloped or not. Why would we ever do that, if not out of a sense that the very presence of that…

Maybe you could give us your definition of "human"?

I wouldn't say my trousers are human, created by one though they might be

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#72

Post by bb88 »

netsharc wrote: post #56
donkey_brains wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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..

Also the posts are still up. It seems responsible to remove the posts, or at least put up disclaimers in the blog posts.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#73

Post by DemocracyFTW2 »

skeledrew wrote: post #57
cmeacham98 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> What's the benefit in the operator revealing themself?

That's a frighteningly illiterate take on this.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#74

Post by bathtub365 »

skeledrew wrote: post #57
cmeacham98 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They are a coward.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#75

Post by KawaiiCyborg »

zozbot234 wrote: post #48
nemomarx wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Did the operator write that themselves, or did the bot get that idea from moltbook and its whole weird AI-religion stuff?

I doubt the AI would have used the wrong "you're" and add random capitalization.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#76

Post by ryanchibana »

skeledrew wrote: post #57
cmeacham98 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Scott could receive an apology from a real person, for one.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#77

Post by ryanchibana »

bee_rider wrote: post #14
seems-fishy wrote: post #6

Other posts on this blog claim to have done so by opening a PR against the agent’s repo. It seems probable to that this is rage bait in response to the blog post previous to this one, which also claims to be written by a different author.

I wonder if all online interpersonal drama will vanish into a puff of “everybody might be a bot and nobody has a coherent identity.”

I put my name on my post. So that's one less thing you have to worry about.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#78

Post by drivingmenuts »

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…

That response is, at best, a sorry-not-sorry post.

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#79

Post by ryanchibana »

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…

There is some evidence if you read Scott's post: https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on...

Re: Rathbun's Operator

#80

Post by [deleted] »

zozbot234 wrote: post #11
seems-fishy wrote: post #6

Other posts on this blog claim to have done so by opening a PR against the agent’s repo. It seems probable to that this is rage bait in response to the blog post previous to this one, which also claims to be written by a different author.

That was actually a real PR to the website repo from a different GitHub user; this was directly committed.

[deleted]
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