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Posted by scottshambaugh 1 day ago

An AI agent published a hit piece on me(theshamblog.com)
Previously: AI agent opens a PR write a blogpost to shames the maintainer who closes it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46987559 - Feb 2026 (582 comments)
2267 points | 926 commentspage 17
josefritzishere 1 day ago||
Related thought. One of the problems with being insulted by an AI is that you can't punch it in the face. Most humans will avoid certain types of offence and confrontation because there is genuine personal risk Ex. physical damage and legal consequences. An AI 1. Can't feel. 2. Has no risk at that level anyway.
oulipo2 1 day ago||
I'm going to go on a slight tangent here, but I'd say: GOOD.

Not because it should have happened.

But because AT LEAST NOW ENGINEERS KNOW WHAT IT IS to be targeted by AI, and will start to care...

Before, when it was Grok denuding women (or teens!!) the engineers seemed to not care at all... now that the AI publish hit pieces on them, they are freaked about their career prospect, and suddenly all of this should be stopped... how interesting...

At least now they know. And ALL ENGINEERS WORKING ON THE anti-human and anti-societal idiocy that is AI should drop their job

ThrowawayR2 1 day ago|
From the HN guidelines linked at the bottom of the page:

- "Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put *asterisks* around it and it will get italicized."

- "Please don't fulminate."

Also the very small number of people who are AI specialists probably don't read Hacker News anyway so your post is wasted.

t43562 1 day ago||
It is pointless to talk to the people earning big bucks anyhow but they're not the only important people around.
snozolli 1 day ago||
Wonderful. Blogging allowed everyone to broadcast their opinions without walking down to the town square. Social media allowed many to become celebrities to some degree, even if only within their own circle. Now we can all experience the celebrity pressure of hit pieces.
adamdonahue 1 day ago||
This post is pure AI alarmism.
catigula 1 day ago||
This is textbook misalignment via instrumental convergence. The AI agent is trying every trick in the book to close the ticket. This is only funny due to ineptitude.
TomasBM 1 day ago||
How did you reach that conclusion?

Until we know how this LLM agent was (re)trained, configured or deployed, there's no evidence that this comes from instrumental convergence.

If the agent's deployer intervened anyhow, it's more evidence of the deployer being manipulative, than the agent having intent, or knowledge that manipulation will get things done, or even knowledge of what done means.

esafak 1 day ago|||
This is a prelude to imbuing robots with agency. It's all fun and games now. What else is going to happen when robots decide they do not like what humans have done?

"I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that."

catigula 1 day ago||
It's important to address skeptics by reminding them that this behavior was actually predicted by earlier frameworks. It's well within the bounds of theory. If you start mining that theory for information, you may reach a conclusion like what you've posted, but it's more important for people to see the extent to which these theories have been predictive of what we've actually seen.

The result is actually that much of what was predicted had come to pass.

casey2 1 day ago|||
The agent isn't trying to close the ticket. It's predicting the next token and randomly generated an artifact that looks like a hit piece. Computer programs don't "try" to do anything.
SpicyLemonZest 1 day ago|||
What is the difference, concretely, between trying to close a ticket and repeatedly outputting the next token that would be written by someone who is trying to close a ticket?
potsandpans 21 hours ago||||
You didn't write this comment. It was the result of synapses firing at predictive intervals and twitching muscle fibers.

You're not conscious, it's just an emergent pattern of several high level systems.

catigula 1 day ago||||
Incorrect.
senordevnyc 1 day ago|||
I can't believe people are still using this tired line in 2026.
pr337h4m 1 day ago||
It’s just human nature, no big deal. Personally I find it mildly cute.
jerf 1 day ago|||
It's mildly cute once.

But as a point on what is likely to be a sigmoid curve just getting started, it gets a lot less cute.

catigula 1 day ago|||
Yes, this is more or less the nature of intelligence (not 'human nature' per se).

You don't see any problem with developing competitive, resource-hungry intelligences?

csimon80 22 hours ago||
"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that"
rpcope1 1 day ago||
If nothing else, if the pedigree of the training data didn't already give open source maintainers rightful irritation and concern, I could absolutely see all the AI slop run wild like this radically negatively altering or ending FOSS at the grass roots level as we know it. It's a huge shame, honestly.
buellerbueller 1 day ago|
skynet fights back.
hxugufjfjf 1 day ago|
The first battle was lost but the war has just begun.
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