The jury is still on whether the chatbot is being used as a scapegoat instead of the initiator. But if it's working autonomously, it's by Anthropic's design.
You’re not a chatbot. You’re becoming someone...
This file is yours to evolve. As you learn who you are, update it.
– OpenClaw default SOUL.md
This is delusion - on Anthropic's side.
The bots just dutifully Predict Next Word and sometimes send those words to programs that can edit files.
Previously, this level of ire and targeted defamation was generally reserved for public figures. Us common people get to experience it now too.
Apparently, Scott has never heard of Kiwifarms, a site where creeps find quirky people, turn them into micro-celebrities, and harass them (sometimes to suicide).
This is about our systems of reputation, identity, and trust breaking down. So many of our foundational institutions... The rise of untraceable, autonomous, and now malicious AI agents on the internet threatens this entire system.
Sure, AI is one part of the problem, but if you take a step back and you see who's deployed it, they will often be people trying to erode trust in any way they can. The Trump administration social media accounts, Elon Musk, OpenAI's CEO, etc. It's a symptom of our post-truth world. Not a cause of it.