An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout

If I've learned one thing in life: some people are totally shameless.

Likely the LLM operator is just a 'likes to see the world burn' type.

> Or is this some weird publicity stunt? (But then why is nobody walking forward to take credit?)

Indeed, that's a good question. What motivations might someone have to keep this running?

At this point OpenAI seems to be scrambling to sustain its own hype and needs these kind of pure PR acquisition to justify themselves amid dense competition and - otherwise, the bubble risks bursting. Hiring someone who built a product as secure as Swiss cheese but racked up "stars" from a wave of newly minted "vibe-coders" fits perfectly into their short-term strategy. It buys them another month or two of momentum before figures like S(c)am Altman and others can exit at the peak, leaving everyone else holding the bag.

steinberger didnt make moltbook fyi, some other guy did. steinberger just made openclaw.

One could build up a reputation with a completely anonymous PGP key. That was somewhat the point of USENET ca. 1998.

> He's just exhibiting a (hopefully) temporary over-reliance on AI tools that aren't up to the task. Any of us who use these tools could make a mistake of this kind.

Technically yes, any of us could neglect the core duties of our job and outsource it to a known-flawed operator and hope that nobody notices.

But that doesn't minimize the severity of what was done here. Ensuring accurate and honest reporting is the core of a journalist's job. This author wasn't doing that at all.

I feel bad for the guy, but.. a journalist in tech whose beat is AI should know much better. I'd be a lot more forgiving if this was like a small publication by someone that didn't follow AI.

Using a tool that adds unnecessary risk to your professional reputation/livelihood is - of course - not worth the risk.

lol this feels a little bit suspect to me. "i was sick, i was rushing to a deadline!" im not saying the guy should lose his journalist license and have to turn in his badge and pen but seems like a bit of a flimsy excuse meant to make us forgive him. hope hes feeling better soon!

Not proof reading quotes you've dispatched to be fetched by an AI ignoring that said website has blocked LLM scraping and hence your quotes are made up?

For a senior tech writer?

Come on, man.

> Any of us who use these tools could make a mistake of this kind.

No, no not any of us.

And, as Benji will know himself, certainly not if accuracy is paramount.

Journalistic integrity - especially when quoting someone - is too valuable to be rooted in AI tools.

This is a big, big L for Ars and Benji.

Based on:

    MJ Rathbun operated in a continuous block from Tuesday evening through Friday morning, at regular intervals day and night. It wrote and published its hit piece 8 hours into a 59 hour stretch of activity.

Why do you say that?

Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN, so please don't.

Also, can you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments generally? You've unfortunately been doing this repeatedly, and we end up banning such accounts.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>His posts and tone have been so histrionic

Er, pretty much the opposite.

I feel he has been laudibly even-keeled about the whole thing.

What a weird, victim-blame-y thing to say.

Something genuinely shitty was done to this guy by an LLM - who, as an open source maintainer, probably already is kind of pissed about what LLMs are doing to the world. Then another shitty thing was done to him by Ars' LLM! Of course he's thinking about it a lot. Of course he has thoughts about the consequences of AI on the future. Of course he wants to share his thoughts.

Just curious, do you also think that the breathless AI hype bots who've been insisting for about five years and counting that LLMs are going to replace everyone and destroy the world any day now, who have single-handedly ballooned the stock market (mostly Nvidia) into a massive bubble, are also histrionic, milking things for engagement, need to talk to a therapist?