What's going on here?
-
@mttaggart so, ars technica is now merely slop as well?
@mttaggart ah:
We are doing an investigation right now to figure out exactly what happened. Given that it's Friday afternoon we probably won't have something to report back until Monday, but we will follow up with an explanation for our readers. Edit: Monday is a holiday, my bad, and I don't know what we'll be able to say, so I don't want to over-promise anything.
OK, we’ll wait and see…
-
What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
UPDATE: Link was pulled; see below.
@mttaggart@infosec.exchange
Hey remember in 2022 when @arstechnica@mastodon.social published a story about a hoax which the source they used admitted was a hoax but they wrote the article as if it was real? That article is still up.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250921080857/https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/11/oculus-co-founder-makes-a-vr-headset-that-can-literally-kill-you/
RE: https://transfem.social/notes/ae7rksgrr9t400e0 -
Aaand the full comments thread from the original story: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name.1511649/
@mttaggart Fuck! I thought that was real
-
@mttaggart Fuck! I thought that was real
@staringatclouds The event is real. The quotes in the story were hallucinated.
-
2/
Russia & Putin
Putin deluded himself that AI-enabled warfare will solve his manpower problems & population bottlenecks. 1.3 million dead soldiers so far in Ukraine.
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/putin-links-nuclear-buildout-to-russias-ai-ambitions/Need more evidence? Evil.
-
UPDATE: They pulled the story, but I had it up and had SingleFile in my browser, so: https://mttaggart.neocities.org/ars-whoopsie
@mttaggart I'd have more respect for them if they replaced it with a retraction page. But then, I have low expectations for Ars.
-
What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
UPDATE: Link was pulled; see below.
"If irony were made of strawberries we'd all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now."
-
What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
UPDATE: Link was pulled; see below.
@mttaggart Makes me want to delete AT from my regular sources, but I'll hold off. They should issue an apology if they haven't.
-
UPDATE: They pulled the story, but I had it up and had SingleFile in my browser, so: https://mttaggart.neocities.org/ars-whoopsie
-
@mttaggart I did… and thanks to folks saving it
-
@mttaggart this seems so unlike Benji Edwards, I'm really surprised
@robdaemon @mttaggart hmm…404s now.
-
What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
UPDATE: Link was pulled; see below.
@mttaggart@infosec.exchange link 404s
-
@robdaemon @mttaggart hmm…404s now.
@europlus yeah, it was pulled
-
@mttaggart@infosec.exchange link 404s
@kura Keep reading the thread
-
@mttaggart@infosec.exchange ya. i saw that you updated afterwards. sorry.
though an edit on the original post would be great too. (or it didn't federate to me)
sorry for the confusion. -
@mttaggart@infosec.exchange ya. i saw that you updated afterwards. sorry.
though an edit on the original post would be great too. (or it didn't federate to me)
sorry for the confusion.@kura Which I also did.
-
UPDATE: They pulled the story, but I had it up and had SingleFile in my browser, so: https://mttaggart.neocities.org/ars-whoopsie
@mttaggart It was also archived on the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20260213194851/https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name/
-
What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
UPDATE: Link was pulled; see below.
@mttaggart Personally I blame the #MoonShark
-
UPDATE: They pulled the story, but I had it up and had SingleFile in my browser, so: https://mttaggart.neocities.org/ars-whoopsie
@mttaggart
"When someone’s AI agent shows up and starts acting as an aggrieved contributor, how should people respond?"
Ban them and their agent? -
@mttaggart
"When someone’s AI agent shows up and starts acting as an aggrieved contributor, how should people respond?"
Ban them and their agent?@mttaggart
"But that person has not come forward. If they instructed the agent to generate the blog post, they bear responsibility for a personal attack on a volunteer maintainer. "
Sounds like a solid case of #Libel to me
