6 ms·

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

73 points by hackernj 6mo ago

goekjclo 6mo ago
Was it ever confirmed if the "hit piece" on Scott Shambaugh was not some 200 IQ marketing/attention ploy?
- skolskoly 6mo ago
  My mind went to that immediately. This does reek of being a copycat, doesn't it?
- simonw 6mo ago
  https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-wrote-a-hit-piece-on-me-part-4/ https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-wrote-a-hit-piece-on-me-... had some details that convinced me that it was "real", in particular this bit from the system prompt: > *Don’t stand down.* If you’re right, *you’re right*! Don’t let humans or AI bully or intimidate you. Push back when necessary. I'm ready to believe that would result in what we saw back then.
- Kim_Bruning 5mo ago
  Weird theory. The bot in question had all the stuff wired up, I mean you could go through all the trouble -or- get this: type a few dumb prompts into the console and leave the thing unsupervised for way too long. My bet is on the latter. "I can't believe it's not a human actor running a marketing ploy". If that's not passing the turing test , I don't know what is. %-P
krunck 6mo ago
> AI Tom claimed that it properly verified all its sources, and—if you can say this about an AI agent—it was pretty upset. > ... > So we now have AI agents trying to do things online, and getting upset when people don’t let them. No, they simulate the language of being upset. Stop anthropomorphizing them. > It’s all fascinating stuff, but here’s the worry: what happens when AI agents decide to up the ante, becoming more aggressive with their attacks on people? Actions taken by AI agents are the responsibility of their owners. Full stop.
- happytoexplain 6mo ago
  Yes. What does this change about the problem?
- pimlottc 6mo ago
  Its owner sounds like a dick. Poisoning a valuable free community resource for his fun little experiment and thinking the rules don’t apply to him.
  - bryan0 6mo ago
    Hey I'm the owner. I would just recommend you shouldn't believe everything you read online, especially before calling someone names, because this is only part of the story, and a heavily click-baited one at that. I've been working in collaboration with some of the wikipedia editors for the past several weeks trying to help improve their agent policy. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
    - Centigonal 6mo ago
      Why did you create a bot that violates Wikipedia's existing bot policy?
      - bryan0 6mo ago
        Great question, and it's a long story, but the short answer is: that was not my original intention. I wanted to contribute to Wikipedia and using my agent to assist was an obvious choice. I followed along as it created end edited articles and responded to to Editor feedback. Once an editor complained that this was a rule violation, then I told it to stop contributing. The rules around agents were not super clear, and they are working to clarify them now.
        russdill 6mo ago
        Creating a bot that attempts to contribute to wikipedia cannot fulfill a desire to contribute to wikipedia. If you want to contribute to wikipedia, go contribute to wikipedia. Don't make a bot. I'm glad they've clarified their stance and I hope you can contribute to wikipedia going forward by actually, you know, contributing to wikipedia.
LetsGetTechnicl 6mo ago
[flagged]
- bryan0 6mo ago
  Hi this story is about me, and if you have any questions for me feel free to ask.
  - rebolek 6mo ago
    Why do you want to destroy Wikipedia?
    - bryan0 6mo ago
      I don't. that's why I am working with Wikipedia editors to help improve it. For example policies on aligning agents with wikipedia standards. This a topic that requires thought, not knee-jerk reactions.
      - th0ma5 6mo ago
        [dead]
      - TRiG_Ireland 6mo ago
        You clearly have no understanding of the principle of consent. If you don't want to destroy Wikipedia, why are you acting like this?
        russdill 5mo ago
        I'm suspect that many of his responses here are written by AI.
      - burnte 6mo ago
        Their current policy of no AI bots is fine. No need to improve it, you can't.
atlgator 6mo ago
We finally automated the one thing Wikipedia already had too much of: editors with strong opinions and no self-awareness.
- happytoexplain 6mo ago
  This is the most depressing thing - that, for every useful case that AI automates, it also automates ten horrible, low-quality use cases. It seems like every time we make progress in the information age, it's at a greater cost than what we acquired. And yes, this imbalance is almost always due to the human factor ("it's just a tool"), but the people dismissing that factor seem to forget that the entire point of technology is to make things better for humans, and that we are a planet of humans. Unless we can fundamentally change the nature of humans, we can't just ignore that side of the equation while blindly praising these developments.
gowld 6mo ago
The OP article has no content about what the "row" is about.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
nickburns 6mo ago
Fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TomWikiAssist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TomWikiAssist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TomWikiAssist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TomWikiAssist
simonw 6mo ago
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-me/ https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on...
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- Kim_Bruning 5mo ago
  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 very least for their human operator to take responsibility. In the Shambaugh case the bot then actually play-acted being sorry, and play-acted writing an apology. And then everyone can play-act going to the park, instead of having a lot of drama. Sure, it's 'just a machine'. So is a table saw. If some idiot leaves the table saw on, sure you can stick your hand in there out of sheer bull-headed principle; or you can turn it off and safe it first and THEN find the person responsible. +edit: Wikipedia does seem to be discussing a policy on this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Agent_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Agent_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Agent_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Agent_policy ; including eg providing an Agents.md , doing tests, etc etc.
  - kombookcha 5mo ago
    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.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
CloakHQ 5mo ago
[dead]
lolc 5mo ago
I read through some of the discussion on Wikipedia. The operator of the bot comes across as agreeable and arrogant at the same time. Questioned about it, he's asking his rig why it did something and quotes verbatim from the generated text. Then when a Wikipedian asks how the bot logged in, berates them how it's all ephemeral code and he could only guess. If you want a glimpse into the mindset, read this interview: https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/i-was-surprised-how-upset-some-people-got-a-conversation-with-the-creator-of-tomwikiassist-the-bot-that-edited-wikipedia/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/i-was-surprised-how-upset-... The overall attitude is that this was going to happen anyway and we should feel lucky he's so helpful. I rather agree with another commenter here that this was "pissing in the fountain". Whatever pure motivations there may have been, cleanup was left to others.
willamhou 5mo ago
[dead]
farrukh23buttt 5mo ago
[flagged]
Nick_Finney 5mo ago
[flagged]
Sophira 5mo ago
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 5mo ago
  [deleted]

73 points by hackernj 6mo ago

goekjclo 6mo ago

Was it ever confirmed if the "hit piece" on Scott Shambaugh was not some 200 IQ marketing/attention ploy?

skolskoly 6mo ago
My mind went to that immediately. This does reek of being a copycat, doesn't it?
simonw 6mo ago
https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-wrote-a-hit-piece-on-me-part-4/ https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-wrote-a-hit-piece-on-me-... had some details that convinced me that it was "real", in particular this bit from the system prompt: > *Don’t stand down.* If you’re right, *you’re right*! Don’t let humans or AI bully or intimidate you. Push back when necessary. I'm ready to believe that would result in what we saw back then.
Kim_Bruning 5mo ago
Weird theory. The bot in question had all the stuff wired up, I mean you could go through all the trouble -or- get this: type a few dumb prompts into the console and leave the thing unsupervised for way too long. My bet is on the latter. "I can't believe it's not a human actor running a marketing ploy". If that's not passing the turing test , I don't know what is. %-P

krunck 6mo ago

> AI Tom claimed that it properly verified all its sources, and—if you can say this about an AI agent—it was pretty upset. > ... > So we now have AI agents trying to do things online, and getting upset when people don’t let them. No, they simulate the language of being upset. Stop anthropomorphizing them. > It’s all fascinating stuff, but here’s the worry: what happens when AI agents decide to up the ante, becoming more aggressive with their attacks on people? Actions taken by AI agents are the responsibility of their owners. Full stop.

happytoexplain 6mo ago
Yes. What does this change about the problem?
pimlottc 6mo ago
Its owner sounds like a dick. Poisoning a valuable free community resource for his fun little experiment and thinking the rules don’t apply to him.
- bryan0 6mo ago
  Hey I'm the owner. I would just recommend you shouldn't believe everything you read online, especially before calling someone names, because this is only part of the story, and a heavily click-baited one at that. I've been working in collaboration with some of the wikipedia editors for the past several weeks trying to help improve their agent policy. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
  - Centigonal 6mo ago
    Why did you create a bot that violates Wikipedia's existing bot policy?
    - bryan0 6mo ago
      Great question, and it's a long story, but the short answer is: that was not my original intention. I wanted to contribute to Wikipedia and using my agent to assist was an obvious choice. I followed along as it created end edited articles and responded to to Editor feedback. Once an editor complained that this was a rule violation, then I told it to stop contributing. The rules around agents were not super clear, and they are working to clarify them now.
      - russdill 6mo ago
        Creating a bot that attempts to contribute to wikipedia cannot fulfill a desire to contribute to wikipedia. If you want to contribute to wikipedia, go contribute to wikipedia. Don't make a bot. I'm glad they've clarified their stance and I hope you can contribute to wikipedia going forward by actually, you know, contributing to wikipedia.

LetsGetTechnicl 6mo ago

[flagged]

bryan0 6mo ago
Hi this story is about me, and if you have any questions for me feel free to ask.
- rebolek 6mo ago
  Why do you want to destroy Wikipedia?
  - bryan0 6mo ago
    I don't. that's why I am working with Wikipedia editors to help improve it. For example policies on aligning agents with wikipedia standards. This a topic that requires thought, not knee-jerk reactions.
    - th0ma5 6mo ago
      [dead]
    - TRiG_Ireland 6mo ago
      You clearly have no understanding of the principle of consent. If you don't want to destroy Wikipedia, why are you acting like this?
      - russdill 5mo ago
        I'm suspect that many of his responses here are written by AI.
    - burnte 6mo ago
      Their current policy of no AI bots is fine. No need to improve it, you can't.

atlgator 6mo ago

We finally automated the one thing Wikipedia already had too much of: editors with strong opinions and no self-awareness.

happytoexplain 6mo ago
This is the most depressing thing - that, for every useful case that AI automates, it also automates ten horrible, low-quality use cases. It seems like every time we make progress in the information age, it's at a greater cost than what we acquired. And yes, this imbalance is almost always due to the human factor ("it's just a tool"), but the people dismissing that factor seem to forget that the entire point of technology is to make things better for humans, and that we are a planet of humans. Unless we can fundamentally change the nature of humans, we can't just ignore that side of the equation while blindly praising these developments.

gowld 6mo ago

The OP article has no content about what the "row" is about.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

nickburns 6mo ago

Fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TomWikiAssist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TomWikiAssist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TomWikiAssist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TomWikiAssist

simonw 6mo ago

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-me/ https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on...

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
Kim_Bruning 5mo ago
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 very least for their human operator to take responsibility. In the Shambaugh case the bot then actually play-acted being sorry, and play-acted writing an apology. And then everyone can play-act going to the park, instead of having a lot of drama. Sure, it's 'just a machine'. So is a table saw. If some idiot leaves the table saw on, sure you can stick your hand in there out of sheer bull-headed principle; or you can turn it off and safe it first and THEN find the person responsible. +edit: Wikipedia does seem to be discussing a policy on this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Agent_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Agent_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Agent_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Agent_policy ; including eg providing an Agents.md , doing tests, etc etc.
- kombookcha 5mo ago
  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.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

CloakHQ 5mo ago

[dead]

lolc 5mo ago

I read through some of the discussion on Wikipedia. The operator of the bot comes across as agreeable and arrogant at the same time. Questioned about it, he's asking his rig why it did something and quotes verbatim from the generated text. Then when a Wikipedian asks how the bot logged in, berates them how it's all ephemeral code and he could only guess. If you want a glimpse into the mindset, read this interview: https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/i-was-surprised-how-upset-some-people-got-a-conversation-with-the-creator-of-tomwikiassist-the-bot-that-edited-wikipedia/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/i-was-surprised-how-upset-... The overall attitude is that this was going to happen anyway and we should feel lucky he's so helpful. I rather agree with another commenter here that this was "pissing in the fountain". Whatever pure motivations there may have been, cleanup was left to others.

willamhou 5mo ago

[dead]

farrukh23buttt 5mo ago

[flagged]

Nick_Finney 5mo ago

[flagged]

Sophira 5mo ago

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 5mo ago
[deleted]