@IcooIey @mttaggart way deep in this article he says “more than likely there was no human telling the AI to do this.” I’m skeptical. More than likely? How so? Maybe he should have run down that possibility first? It would be so easy for whoever created that agent to hoax this whole thing for clicks.

@jalefkowit @mttaggart it's a huge betrayal on their part. I'm so angry right now.

@mttaggart I stopped going to [Big Publish] websites when the electrical conductor magazine site (they can pay me to mention their brands) started whinging about me blocking their animated ads which were so distracting I couldn’t read their articles without blocking them. It was obvious their goal wasn’t to publish news or informational articles, it’s to sell my attention to their actual customers, their advertisers.

@andyinabox @mttaggart @404mediaco was going to mention 404 as well. Fascinating story... Full support to you. This is a crazy time we live in.

@mttaggart The layers of delusion and irony to all of this is just staggering. One Ai gets pissy, and another AI writes a delusional article about the pissy AI... What a world we live in...

@IcooIey @mttaggart I’m very disappointed in not only Ars, but also BoingBoing and other ostensible news outlets for spreading this story when none of them have managed to figure out who deployed the agent in the first place. Without that info this isn’t a story at all it’s just speculation on what AI might be capable of. Smells like a troll to me.

@mttaggart Ayyyy. I just cancelled my subscription. Not good.

@aliide @theorangetheme @mttaggart right!? So the biases get embedded in their black box, and all they can say is "sorry, the computer says no", and no-one can question it because no-one really understands it.

@rusty__shackleford @Gaelan Give ‘em a break it’s the weekend - they have to wait til Monday to buy more tokens so they can generate an apology letter.

(Edit: typo)

@RealGene @mttaggart okay fine, if you successfully create massive fashist infrastructure, then yes, you can erase written works on a whim.

It's still a hell of a lot harder than taking down a webpage.

@Kiloku @mttaggart #ThisRightHere
Yep, totally agree. If an aggressive dog bites someone with out warning, the owner is held liable. Same principle should apply here.

@mttaggart Just wanted to note they did eventually take down the comments on the article, but only after Aurich edited his last one to say they might not be able to comment publicly on their investigation. Which is the absolutely possible choice Ars (and more likely Condé Nast) could make if they want to retain credibility on...well, anything, but specifically on their AI coverage.

@rusty__shackleford @Gaelan yeah, all but the "do we have a policy against AI writing?" are questions that take time to investigate. In terms of the process failure, potentially quite a bit of time because you have to schedule interviews with many people. I'm curious how it happened too but i don't want people hauled in on a long weekend over it.

@dragonfrog @Gaelan

It should be cut & dry.

Restate your policy on AI generated content.
State you are doing an investigation.
Then move on.

This particular wording leaves room for excuses for the continued use of AI summarizers/ writing assistants.

I'm not saying to actually do anything over the weekend.

I'm aware of Condé Nas's internal policies when an article gets pulled from Ars, there's a formal investigation to avoid slandering the writer & chain of trust their work passed through.

@mttaggart@infosec.exchange AI is giving itself Cyberpsychosis now, amazing

@art_codesmith @tankgrrl @mttaggart they have enough information already to justify immediately yanking the article, so "we'll tell you next week" scans to me as "we need to figure out the PR angle on this" more than "we need to find out what happened".

Maybe their explanation will be a good one, but I'm not holding my breath.

@mttaggart The Wayback Machine has the article (though not the comments) for those interested: 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/

@mttaggart if the authors unilaterally did this, they're so fired.

These were pulled too, but thank you again Wayback:

After a routine code rejection, an AI agent published a hit piece on someone by name

One developer is struggling with the social implications of a drive-by AI character attack. See full article...

Ars OpenForum (web.archive.org)

@SnoopJ @art_codesmith @tankgrrl @mttaggart I'm waiting to see what happens in a few days to judge. It's clear the quotes are fake and they acknowledged that, but I can see it taking a few days to identify *how* this happened, and how it made it through editorial. I'm worried though, and I don't know if their answer next week is going to satisfy me.