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

goekjclo

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

krunck

> 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.

LetsGetTechnicl

These people are sociopaths. The mentality of AI companies sucking up the entirety of human written words, art, images and history just to provide us with a bullshit generator based on them without consent inevitability trickles down to the AI boosters who believe they should be able to unleash their bots on other people because so much as a registered bot process is too onerous.

atlgator

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

gowld

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

nickburns

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

simonw

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...

lolc

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-... 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.