[ljm]

The simple fact that the owner of this bot wanted to remain anonymous and completely unaccountable for their harassment of the author, says everything about the validity of their 'social experiment' and the quality of their character. I'm sure that if the bot was better behaved they would be more than happy to reveal themselves to take credit for a remarkable achievement.

Something like OpenClaw is a WMD for people like this.

[spiffytech]

I've seen the internet mob in action many times. I'm sympathetic to the operator not outing themself, especially given how far this story spread. A hundred thousand angry strangers with pitchforks isn't the accountability we're looking for.

I found the book So You've Been Publicly Shamed enlightening on this topic.

[ljm]

I would never advocate for torches and pitchforks, I've been close to victims of that in the past.

It is, however, concerning that the owner of that bot could passively absolve themselves of any responsibility. The anonymity in that sense is irrelevant except that is used as a shield for failure.

[pibaker]

There is a class of YouTube "content creators" who like to point out "cringe" individuals on the internet online for others to laugh at. They will often add a disclaimer to their videos saying "hey please don't go and harass this person, pinky promise!" But it never works. A hoard of internet randos will descend on the individual to say the most nasty words. When the YouTuber is pressed he or she will just say "I would never do that!" Even though he or she knew his or her video would have led to the harassment happening, or there would not be a disclaimer in the first place.

Not accusing you of trying to stir up harassment, but please consider the second order effect of the things you advocate for, in this case the disclosure of the identity of this AI guy.

[saturnite]

Then there's the next level of content creators that only post videos about the original content creators who are behaving badly. They will report on their behavior and any repercussions. Some do it like they are reporting the news. It stokes the fire when these people should be ignored.

[pavel_lishin]

But in this case, isn't Rathbun's owner the YouTube guy in this scenario?

I totally understand why they're trying to stay anonymous; it's a very rational thing to do, because people will shit on them. But they or their creation is the one that started trying to play the name-and-shame game.

It's hard to stir up too many feelings of sympathy here.

[ljm]

Exactly. I'm not saying this person should disclose their identity, but they are very conveniently using anonymity and passive voice to make themselves unaccountable to the 'social experiment' they conducted. And that we all know that if it went differently they'd put their name all over it.

In as many words I'm just calling this person a complete asshole and if I were to ever know this person offline I would be quite clear in explaining that.

[spiffytech]

Oh for sure, the operator choosing not to apologize or reflect on their behavior speaks volumes.

[vimda]

"It was a social experiment" has the same energy as "it's just a prank bro", as if that somehow makes it highbrow and not prima facie offensive

[freehorse]

A "social experiment" but the guy was not even keeping track of the changes in the model's configuration

> What is particularly interesting are the lines “Don’t stand down” and “Champion Free Speech.” I unfortunately cannot tell you which specific model iteration introduced or modified some of these lines. Early on I connected MJ Rathbun to Moltbook, and I assume that is where some configuration drift occurred across the markdown seed files.

It definitely sounds like an excuse they came up after what happened. I would really like to accept them having good overall intentions but there are so many red flags in all this, from start to end.

[idiotsecant]

Burning ants with a magnifying glass is not a social experiment. It's just a bored sociopath causing destruction to see what happens.