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We have a massive poisoning of the commons catastrophe coming, driven by further authoritarian government overreach and control. I've seen no one working on thi

by dluan 7mo ago

We have a massive poisoning of the commons catastrophe coming, driven by further authoritarian government overreach and control. I've seen no one working on this, and in fact most people on HN seem to be working on ways to further exacerbate this problem. I don't just mean half solutions like tor or social protocols that let you in and out of walled gardens. There's still a tiny window of opportunity for engineers to come up with or design technical safeguards, but eventually this problem will move past the realm of what's easily solvable and out of our hands, and into policy makers hands. A big part of me feels like that window is already slammed shut.

mmooss 7mo ago
There were many disinformation research organizations in the US, including at major institutions such as Harvard and Stanford, that were forced to close by conservatives through lawfare or apparently through donor pressure. (It's interesting that conservatives saw it as a partisan cause.)
Mistletoe 7mo ago
To quote The Cable Guy, there’s only one answer, someone has to kill the babysitter (tv, social media, Big Tech). It’s hard to kill the babysitter when everyone in Congress is invested balls deep in the babysitter. Eisenhower warned of the coming overreaching powers of the Military Industrial Complex, but no one is attacking the Government Stock Market Tech Complex (GSMTC).
- mannanj 7mo ago
  It’s beyond that. It’s the CIA deeply embedded in all the scary uncomfortable ways you would have hoped never possible. Presidents win and turn their stance and run around in the other direction, they don’t what to be another assassinated Kennedy (and imo today they would have other fears worse than dying). Congressmen and women are definitely also aware of the deep presence and power of that agency and its perversion into American life and politics. They don’t want to be the ones to be the sacrificial pawn sparking an outright violent American revolution and tear down of the agency. I was surveilled, experimented on and followed by them for being American-Pakistani and speaking out against them from 2022-2023. It was a scary time and I wish I were making this up. I wonder sometimes if they really are the good guys, and I just got things backwards. I also heard when you are kidnapped and in hostile territories for long enough, you fall in love with the kidnappers. Happy to share more details if anyone’s curious.
  - redeeman 7mo ago
    so what you're saying is that the US government is an illegitimate regime and everyone can fully justify destroying it as an enemy of the people?
    - mannanj 7mo ago
      The CIA is not the US government.
  - AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
    How were you experimented on?
    - mannanj 7mo ago
      They put things in my food and beverage - leading to symptoms I hadn’t experienced before. I didn’t expect nor placebo myself into it as only upon further reflection and scrutiny did their activity line up with the cause. I would be experimented also with advanced psychological and confusion tactics. The theme where I would suddenly feel ill, reflect on it later and notice the presence of someone who was certainly matching agent vibes and tactics was frequent afterwards. One time it was the offering of a drink by a woman who had no business popping up there in that circumstance as Though she knew “I dropped my wallet” (rode on a motorcycle with her earlier) and was too high for coincidence ready to offer me something of practical value. This lines with others accounts online of targeted individuals and CIA classified programs of experimentation.
kubb 7mo ago
It feels like "Autonomous Coding Agents" are being astroturfed on the daily on HN. The same arguments and tropes are echoing through every thread. It's hard to distinguish who's a bot, who's a narrative pusher and who's an enthusiast. Which is exactly what you'd want from an astroturfing campaign. There's a clear benefit: people in the industry are reading this, and in doing so they're granting mindshare. There's one way that can prevent inauthentic support campaigns - personal key signature. But judging by how afraid people, especially in the US, need to be of their government surveilling them, this isn't going to catch on.
- coffeefirst 7mo ago
  Yes. I’ve also been asking every engineer I know what they’re doing with AI and there’s a lot of people doing a lot of different things, but it’s a deep mismatch with the online rhetoric. This phenomenon appears to be incrementally coming for every single topic and public platform.
  - SoftTalker 7mo ago
    I feel the same way. Most people I've talked to are using AI for better search. I don't know anyone using it heavily to do their main job (writing code). I think a lot of the accounts bragging about how much they are doing with AI are bots.
    - pessimizer 7mo ago
      I'm even shocked when I hear people are using it for better search. I've found it to be terrible for search, and constantly fabricating things. It's distilled everything that is bad about new Google, where it prefers popular results to accurate ones - but with actual fabrication that becomes infinitely worse. I literally ask it to look for something, and immediately afterwards (before reading the long-winded result), ask it if the results were real or fabricated. It's just how the cost-benefit analysis works out, and I didn't learn until a ton of times reading the results, getting suspicious of a few, doing websearches to verify them, not finding them, then coming back to ask if they were real. "Sorry! It's absolutely fair that you called me out on that... It's important that you hold me to a high standard... You're absolutely right..." I'm finding it valuable for compressing all of the docs in the world, so I don't have to look up what a function does or how to accomplish something in some framework or CLI. I find it capable of writing code if I move an inch at a time; build copious verbose debugging output that I feed back into it every time it screws up; and when it goes into a stupid loop being stupid, just debugging by hand before wasting hours trying to get it to see something that it doesn't want to see.
RobRivera 7mo ago
Its already here.
calibas 7mo ago
> I've seen no one working on this, and in fact most people on HN seem to be working on ways to further exacerbate this problem. It's against the HN guidelines to insinuate that astroturfing happens on HN.
- cwillu 7mo ago
  Discussion of astroturfing on a post that is specifically about astroturfing is such an obvious exception that I'm having a hard time taking your reply in good faith, but this is me trying to do so anyway instead of just downvoting and flagging like the guidelines suggest I do in such cases.
  - calibas 7mo ago
    I'm confused, you think I'm saying he's breaking guidelines? I should have been more clear, but I was trying to skirt the guidelines. I'm sure that astroturfing happens on HN, and I think that not allowing people to talk about it actually helps enable astroturfing.
mhitza 7mo ago
If you can point me at someone that would fund such projects (not VCs), would be happy to apply. Projects like NLNet aren't keen on funding larger scope projects. At least if you do not have the thought leader influencer clout.
- slopinthebag 7mo ago
  What are your ideas for this?
  - mhitza 7mo ago
    Decentralized platform, with traceable decisions, mixing direct web of trust, delegated, and community moderated content labeling. Content servers with pay to post submissions, to allow sustainable hosting and hosting delegated moderation.
alwa 7mo ago
I agree that it feels like the tiny window of opportunity hasn't quite shut yet, and it's a problem space I know I should take more interest in. What do you see as the viable technical directions? Something along the lines of what Altman was trying to do with his Orb? Something along the lines of the C2PA's Content Credentials? [0] e.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-tools-for-humanity-startup-culture-hardcore-2025-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-tools-for-humanit... and the feature piece at https://time.com/7288387/sam-altman-orb-tools-for-humanity/ https://time.com/7288387/sam-altman-orb-tools-for-humanity/ [1] https://contentcredentials.org https://contentcredentials.org and https://c2pa.org https://c2pa.org
- whatshisface 7mo ago
  Instead of collecting biometric info from humans and IDing all of their online movements, you could mandate that LLM output be watermarked (using a technology that Scott Arronson was hired by OpenAI to help develop, after which the project was shut down under Altman right after proving that it could work) so that their online movement would be IDed. The implication in this story that it was shut down to keep the Orb around in principle (telling humans they had to be tagged to distinguish them from machines that could more easily be tagged) is very easy to pick up.
  - alwa 7mo ago
    Is that viable given the proliferation of open-weight LLMs that don't apply that sort of watermarking? If somebody with malign intent can skip the attestation, presumably they will, right?
    - whatshisface 7mo ago
      If every major LLM producer did it, it would not be easy for malicious actors to remove it. That's on top of the fact that most of the issue is coming from careless actors.

by dluan 7mo ago

mmooss 7mo ago

There were many disinformation research organizations in the US, including at major institutions such as Harvard and Stanford, that were forced to close by conservatives through lawfare or apparently through donor pressure. (It's interesting that conservatives saw it as a partisan cause.)

Mistletoe 7mo ago

To quote The Cable Guy, there’s only one answer, someone has to kill the babysitter (tv, social media, Big Tech). It’s hard to kill the babysitter when everyone in Congress is invested balls deep in the babysitter. Eisenhower warned of the coming overreaching powers of the Military Industrial Complex, but no one is attacking the Government Stock Market Tech Complex (GSMTC).

mannanj 7mo ago
It’s beyond that. It’s the CIA deeply embedded in all the scary uncomfortable ways you would have hoped never possible. Presidents win and turn their stance and run around in the other direction, they don’t what to be another assassinated Kennedy (and imo today they would have other fears worse than dying). Congressmen and women are definitely also aware of the deep presence and power of that agency and its perversion into American life and politics. They don’t want to be the ones to be the sacrificial pawn sparking an outright violent American revolution and tear down of the agency. I was surveilled, experimented on and followed by them for being American-Pakistani and speaking out against them from 2022-2023. It was a scary time and I wish I were making this up. I wonder sometimes if they really are the good guys, and I just got things backwards. I also heard when you are kidnapped and in hostile territories for long enough, you fall in love with the kidnappers. Happy to share more details if anyone’s curious.
- redeeman 7mo ago
  so what you're saying is that the US government is an illegitimate regime and everyone can fully justify destroying it as an enemy of the people?
  - mannanj 7mo ago
    The CIA is not the US government.
- AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
  How were you experimented on?
  - mannanj 7mo ago
    They put things in my food and beverage - leading to symptoms I hadn’t experienced before. I didn’t expect nor placebo myself into it as only upon further reflection and scrutiny did their activity line up with the cause. I would be experimented also with advanced psychological and confusion tactics. The theme where I would suddenly feel ill, reflect on it later and notice the presence of someone who was certainly matching agent vibes and tactics was frequent afterwards. One time it was the offering of a drink by a woman who had no business popping up there in that circumstance as Though she knew “I dropped my wallet” (rode on a motorcycle with her earlier) and was too high for coincidence ready to offer me something of practical value. This lines with others accounts online of targeted individuals and CIA classified programs of experimentation.

kubb 7mo ago

It feels like "Autonomous Coding Agents" are being astroturfed on the daily on HN. The same arguments and tropes are echoing through every thread. It's hard to distinguish who's a bot, who's a narrative pusher and who's an enthusiast. Which is exactly what you'd want from an astroturfing campaign. There's a clear benefit: people in the industry are reading this, and in doing so they're granting mindshare. There's one way that can prevent inauthentic support campaigns - personal key signature. But judging by how afraid people, especially in the US, need to be of their government surveilling them, this isn't going to catch on.

coffeefirst 7mo ago
Yes. I’ve also been asking every engineer I know what they’re doing with AI and there’s a lot of people doing a lot of different things, but it’s a deep mismatch with the online rhetoric. This phenomenon appears to be incrementally coming for every single topic and public platform.
- SoftTalker 7mo ago
  I feel the same way. Most people I've talked to are using AI for better search. I don't know anyone using it heavily to do their main job (writing code). I think a lot of the accounts bragging about how much they are doing with AI are bots.
  - pessimizer 7mo ago
    I'm even shocked when I hear people are using it for better search. I've found it to be terrible for search, and constantly fabricating things. It's distilled everything that is bad about new Google, where it prefers popular results to accurate ones - but with actual fabrication that becomes infinitely worse. I literally ask it to look for something, and immediately afterwards (before reading the long-winded result), ask it if the results were real or fabricated. It's just how the cost-benefit analysis works out, and I didn't learn until a ton of times reading the results, getting suspicious of a few, doing websearches to verify them, not finding them, then coming back to ask if they were real. "Sorry! It's absolutely fair that you called me out on that... It's important that you hold me to a high standard... You're absolutely right..." I'm finding it valuable for compressing all of the docs in the world, so I don't have to look up what a function does or how to accomplish something in some framework or CLI. I find it capable of writing code if I move an inch at a time; build copious verbose debugging output that I feed back into it every time it screws up; and when it goes into a stupid loop being stupid, just debugging by hand before wasting hours trying to get it to see something that it doesn't want to see.

RobRivera 7mo ago

Its already here.

calibas 7mo ago

> I've seen no one working on this, and in fact most people on HN seem to be working on ways to further exacerbate this problem. It's against the HN guidelines to insinuate that astroturfing happens on HN.

cwillu 7mo ago
Discussion of astroturfing on a post that is specifically about astroturfing is such an obvious exception that I'm having a hard time taking your reply in good faith, but this is me trying to do so anyway instead of just downvoting and flagging like the guidelines suggest I do in such cases.
- calibas 7mo ago
  I'm confused, you think I'm saying he's breaking guidelines? I should have been more clear, but I was trying to skirt the guidelines. I'm sure that astroturfing happens on HN, and I think that not allowing people to talk about it actually helps enable astroturfing.

mhitza 7mo ago

If you can point me at someone that would fund such projects (not VCs), would be happy to apply. Projects like NLNet aren't keen on funding larger scope projects. At least if you do not have the thought leader influencer clout.

slopinthebag 7mo ago
What are your ideas for this?
- mhitza 7mo ago
  Decentralized platform, with traceable decisions, mixing direct web of trust, delegated, and community moderated content labeling. Content servers with pay to post submissions, to allow sustainable hosting and hosting delegated moderation.

alwa 7mo ago

I agree that it feels like the tiny window of opportunity hasn't quite shut yet, and it's a problem space I know I should take more interest in. What do you see as the viable technical directions? Something along the lines of what Altman was trying to do with his Orb? Something along the lines of the C2PA's Content Credentials? [0] e.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-tools-for-humanity-startup-culture-hardcore-2025-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-tools-for-humanit... and the feature piece at https://time.com/7288387/sam-altman-orb-tools-for-humanity/ https://time.com/7288387/sam-altman-orb-tools-for-humanity/ [1] https://contentcredentials.org https://contentcredentials.org and https://c2pa.org https://c2pa.org

whatshisface 7mo ago
Instead of collecting biometric info from humans and IDing all of their online movements, you could mandate that LLM output be watermarked (using a technology that Scott Arronson was hired by OpenAI to help develop, after which the project was shut down under Altman right after proving that it could work) so that their online movement would be IDed. The implication in this story that it was shut down to keep the Orb around in principle (telling humans they had to be tagged to distinguish them from machines that could more easily be tagged) is very easy to pick up.
- alwa 7mo ago
  Is that viable given the proliferation of open-weight LLMs that don't apply that sort of watermarking? If somebody with malign intent can skip the attestation, presumably they will, right?
  - whatshisface 7mo ago
    If every major LLM producer did it, it would not be easy for malicious actors to remove it. That's on top of the fact that most of the issue is coming from careless actors.