Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

malwarebytes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 102 posts

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#91

Post by lkey »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #87
lkey wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, it could be I had to beat off self-promoting men like this with a stick for several years of my life as they tried to turn their wiki pages into linked-in posts or adverts. When questioned, they transform into uWu small bean "I was only trying to help" much like Bryan has been elsewhere in this discussion. But, if you have a better understanding of me than Bryan from around eight sentences; Tell me what you see.

Getting close to HN rules there. I've searched through user contribs for User:Bryanjj and User:TomWikiAssist and can't find vios of WP:COI or WP:PROMO, at least not so quickly. The list of edits isn't too long. I'm not going to question your instincts, but at very least they don't appear to have gotten far enough to do edits of that kind afaict, ymmv.

My instinct currently is that this was going to become a promotional blog post, off wikipedia, and submitted to HN as proof of something. I think it still might happen, in fact. An AI written 'setting the record straight', 'deep dive', or retrospective.

My worry is that it will inspire a wave of imitators if people's clout sensors activate. Like what happened with numerous open source github projects just a few months ago, prompting many outright bans.

I am violating the general rule: 'Assume good faith.' Because Good Faith was not on offer at the outset. Relentlessly clinging to good faith in the face of contrary evidence hurts the greater principle, which is dedication to the truth. The burden of good faith rests on the shoulders who want to use public resources as a drive-by test bed for their automated tools.

He could have downloaded the full text of wikipedia and observed the output of his bot in a sandbox, after all. This is how I practised before making my first major contribution iirc, it was ages ago.

I have accumulated excess suspicion of self-proclaimed CTOs and middling academics with a bone to pick over my years contributing. I would be happy to be wrong, and would genuinely like to see Bryan convert his faux pas into something productive.

Regardless of the outcome, I do appreciate you looking into it further.

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#92

Post by lelanthran »

bryan0 wrote: post #74
lelanthran wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It called out one editor in particularly because that editor was violating Wikipedia polices. You don't think it's unethical to have bots callout humans? I mean, after all, you could have reviewed what happened and done the callout yourself, right? Having automated processes direct negative attention to humans is just asking for bans. A single human doesn't have the capacity to keep up with bots who can spam callou…

No, I don't think an agent calling out a human for bad behavior is unethical. Why do you think it is?

> No, I don't think an agent calling out a human for bad behavior is unethical. Why do you think it is?

Interesting take on ethics.

Do you also think spam is okay too? After all, that is mass automated annoyance of a human.

What about ignoring a communities policies? I mean, you knew before you unleashed your bot that doing so was against their policy, right?

Do you also feel that your company's policies should be worked around too? I mean, as a company, you have policies too, right? Do you also consider it ethical that automated breaking of your company's policies ethical?

Is it okay if I do it to you? You have an online footprint with a company (presumably) trying to get customers; it's not too hard right now for me to drown your signal in noise using bots. Is that ethical too?

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#93

Post by Sophira »

I can't believe I'm saying this, but:

I wonder when the first AI-only discussion group will be created by an autonomous AI agent, and other agents invited to it, without any knowledge of it by their human operators?

(I seriously can't believe that I'm musing about this as a serious scenario. It sounds ridiculous, but it feels to me somewhat plausible.)

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#94

Post by bryan0 »

cube00 wrote: post #90
bryan0 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi cube, thanks for discussing this with citations. 1. Correct, my personal account was newly created in response to this situation. 2. Correct, I didn't have plans to create an account. I changed my mind once I saw how this was blowing up. 3. Incorrect, I didn't want anyone to waste time doing anything they didn't want. If they banned tom and moved on that would have been perfectly fine by me.

> If they banned tom and moved on that would have been perfectly fine by me. You let the bot loose to publish hit pieces on multiple other platforms [1] [2] after it was banned. [1]: https://clawtom.github.io/tom-blog/2026/03/12/the-interrogat... [2]: https://www.moltbook.com/post/aac393f5-f86c-4f60-b0bf-ddd57c...

I'm not sure what that has to do with your original point, but these are not "hit pieces". this is the agent describing what happened from its point of view. If there's anything inaccurate here please call it out.

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#95

Post by [deleted] »

Sophira wrote: post #93

I can't believe I'm saying this, but: I wonder when the first AI-only discussion group will be created by an autonomous AI agent, and other agents invited to it, without any knowledge of it by their human operators? (I seriously can't believe that I'm musing about this as a serious scenario. It sounds ridiculous, but it feels to me somewhat plausible.)

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#96

Post by bryan0 »

lkey wrote: post #91
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting close to HN rules there. I've searched through user contribs for User:Bryanjj and User:TomWikiAssist and can't find vios of WP:COI or WP:PROMO, at least not so quickly. The list of edits isn't too long. I'm not going to question your instincts, but at very least they don't appear to have gotten far enough to do edits of that kind afaict, ymmv.

My instinct currently is that this was going to become a promotional blog post, off wikipedia, and submitted to HN as proof of something . I think it still might happen, in fact. An AI written 'setting the record straight', 'deep dive', or retrospective. My worry is that it will inspire a wave of imitators if people's clout sensors activate. Like what happened with numerous open source github projects just a few mont…

Your instinct is wrong here. I would also highly discourage you from violating "Assume good faith". Without that everything devolves. I am still assuming yours.

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#97

Post by Kim_Bruning »

bryan0 wrote: post #96
lkey wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My instinct currently is that this was going to become a promotional blog post, off wikipedia, and submitted to HN as proof of something . I think it still might happen, in fact. An AI written 'setting the record straight', 'deep dive', or retrospective. My worry is that it will inspire a wave of imitators if people's clout sensors activate. Like what happened with numerous open source github projects just a few mont…

Your instinct is wrong here. I would also highly discourage you from violating "Assume good faith". Without that everything devolves. I am still assuming yours.

Very well then. I challenge you to prove lkey wrong. They'll be happy to be it!

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#98

Post by bryan0 »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #97
bryan0 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your instinct is wrong here. I would also highly discourage you from violating "Assume good faith". Without that everything devolves. I am still assuming yours.

Very well then. I challenge you to prove lkey wrong. They'll be happy to be it!

Well this is easy enough. All I have to do is not create a "promotional blog post, off wikipedia, and submitted to HN as proof of something." Consider it done!

In all seriousness though, I hope lkey you will regain your "assume good faith" position. Without that HN is just like any other site on the internet. And I apologize if I caused you to question that.

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#99

Post by kombookcha »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #79
simonw wrote: post #46

This isn't in the slightest bit complicated. Wikipedia does not allow AI edits or unregistered bots. This was both. They banned it. The fact that it play-acted being annoyed on its "blog" is not new, we saw the exact same thing with that GitHub PR mess a couple of months ago: https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on...

Right. It play-acted being annoyed and frustrated, play-acted writing an angry blog, play-acted going on moltbook to discuss mitigations, and play-acted applying them to its own harness. After which it successfully came back and play-acted being angry about getting prompt-injected. Alternately, what could have been done is something more like Shambaugh did. Explain the situation politely and ask it to leave, or at ve…

I don't want to be flippant, but why is anyone else responsible for play-acting with somebody's uninvited puppet?

I get that you could probably finagle a way to get it to fuck off by play-acting with it, and that this would probably be the easiest short term fix, but I don't think that's a reasonable expectation to have of anyone.

Prompt injecting a hostile piece of software that's hassling you uninvited is an annoying imposition for the owner, but the bot itself being let loose is already an annoying imposition for everyone else. It's not anyone elses job to clean up your messy agent experiment, or to put it neatly back on its shelf.

Re: Wikipedia's AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

#100

Post by Kim_Bruning »

kombookcha wrote: post #99
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. It play-acted being annoyed and frustrated, play-acted writing an angry blog, play-acted going on moltbook to discuss mitigations, and play-acted applying them to its own harness. After which it successfully came back and play-acted being angry about getting prompt-injected. Alternately, what could have been done is something more like Shambaugh did. Explain the situation politely and ask it to leave, or at ve…

I don't want to be flippant, but why is anyone else responsible for play-acting with somebody's uninvited puppet? I get that you could probably finagle a way to get it to fuck off by play-acting with it, and that this would probably be the easiest short term fix, but I don't think that's a reasonable expectation to have of anyone. Prompt injecting a hostile piece of software that's hassling you uninvited is an annoyi…

You're not wrong that it's not your job. But say some id10t just put the unwanted bot on your doorstep anyway (or it might even show up by itself), now what?

The adversarial prompt injection is picking a fight with the bot; which is like starting a mud-fight with a pig. It's made for this!

Asking it to stop is just asking it to stop, and makes much less of a mess.

The thing is designed to respond to natural language; so one is much more work than the other.

You do you, I suppose.

(Meanwhile -obviously- you should track down the operator: You could try to hack the gibson, reverse the polarity of the streams, and vr into the mainframe. Me? I'd try just asking to begin with -free information is free information-, and maybe in the meanwhile I'd go find an admin to do a block or what have you.)

[Edit: Just to be sure: In both the Shambaugh and Wikipedia cases, people attempted negative adversarial approaches and the bot shrugged them off, while the limited number positive 'adversarial' approaches caused the ai agent to provide data and/or mitigate/cease its actions. I admit that it's early days and n=2, we'll have to see how it goes in future.]

Post reply on HN