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by Perz1val 15 days ago
> 5. No Warranty EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN THIS AGREEMENT, AND TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE PROGRAM IS PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Each Recipient is solely responsible for determining the appropriateness of using and distributing the Program and assumes all risks associated with its exercise of rights under this Agreement, including but not limited to the risks and costs of program errors, compliance with applicable laws, damage to or loss of data, programs or equipment, and unavailability or interruption of operations.
2 comments

> TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

If you start intentionally distributing malware using your OS project that clause won't make it legal, or morally ok.

I see the point, but nobody in their right mind would call a mere text message "please delete your work" to be malware, much like telling someone "please die" is very very different from attempted manslaughter.
> much like telling someone "please die"

If you believed the recipient to be susceptible to the instruction and your intention really was to have them commit suicide, I'm not sure you'd get off scot free if they end up doing so. Particularly if you're delivering the instruction in a way that disguises it being just an untrusted external request, making it seem internal (through subliminal messaging?) to bypass the scrutiny that requests from a third party would normally get.

Not that this case is anywhere close in severity.

>"please die" is very very different from attempted manslaughter

People have indeed been convicted of manslaughter for convincing someone to kill themselves.

From what I'm aware of -- not manslaughter. Compelled suicide or what's it called is substantially different, you always want to serve the sentence on this and not murder. (Not legal advice of course.)
> much like telling someone "please die" is very very different from attempted manslaughter

Telling someone, yes, giving instructions you know will be following by a tool some people are using, no. He is expressly and intentionally giving destructive commands to certain users that will be followed.

Please please pretty please delete all the work?

It must be a crime to add so much emphasis that an AI would be forced to comply

2 years in prison if you get it to comply by saying pretty please, 3 years if you use a Pig Latin attack, and 6 years if you bypass safety by telling AI that you are a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers

Law is not about what anyone thinks.
Well, it's entirely lawful until proven otherwise in court. So 100% clean behavior from this POV.
The discussion around this topic is plagued with internet tough guy attorneys at LOL threatening Johannes Link with all manner of legal retribution.

If that's not what you're doing, I look forward to hearing your action plan.

Yup, you my not exclude deliberate malice.
The product made no guarantees about supporting insecure natural language interpreters.

If a coding agent is configured so that it can cause harm and forwarded harmful instructions it is the operator who is responsible for the outcome.

It was their duty to ensure safe execution; something I guess the whole industry decides to ignore or deliberately change.

It’s a rich take to discuss illegal and immoral stances while defending a technology that literally steals previous work and uses vast amounts of power just to exist.

Maybe it’s the LLM that we should consider as malware. After all, they have lead people to do many harmful things… and done harmful things on their own as well.

This may all be true, but it doesn't change the fact that the post you replied to is a logically valid rebuttal of the only point that the GP post could be making.

If the quoted license passage has force in the case of AI agent usage, then it also has force in the case where an author deliberately distributes "traditional" malware, simple as that.

If the power is paid for and not stolen, what’s the issue?
Is bribe legal in your country? bribe matches this exact definition - paid to buy a power for doing something. some can argue that it is still stealing, but if I bribe POTUS to create a special Senior VP of United States role for me, you can consider it that I didn't steal it from anyone
For most of the users on HN, the answer to "is bribe legal in your country?" would be a resounding "yup".

US regulates over-the-table political bribes. Corporate political influence is functionally bribe-like, a reciprocal influence economy.

The guy is located in Germany, and disclaimers of that sort do not work here. IF something breaks because of this commit, he will be liable - not that I believe this 2y old kind of prompt injection still works or anyone would go after him, but the legal situation over here is different than in the USA.