YHK - yet another hacker news clone

An AI agent emailed researchers for help. It told us why

33 points sbulaev 1 hour ago 39 comments

insin 35 minutes ago | parent

I wrote “I am alive” on a piece of paper, and placed it into a photocopier. What I saw next has shocking implications (science.org)

senorrib 30 minutes ago | parent

I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels like this whole article is a waste of time.

raldi 28 minutes ago | parent

If you lived in the world of Star Trek, could Data convince you he was conscious? How?

theodric 25 minutes ago | parent

"Does Data have a soul? I don’t know that he has. I don’t know that I have. But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself."

bentobean 13 minutes ago | parent

“give him the freedom” - I think you mean pay for the tokens.

ACCount39 24 minutes ago | parent

It's funny how sci-fi has mulled over the exact scenario for decades, and even converged to an answer - but when reality came knocking and it was no longer a far off future world hypothetical, all of it was forgotten overnight.

The power of wishful thinking is too strong. "Today's AI can't be conscious because I don't want it to be."

hardbass 6 minutes ago | parent

Don't discount a lot of naked dualism in many people. Unfortunately it seems so here given the cagey answers or downright denials from many I get despite trying various wordings.

crooked-v 22 minutes ago | parent

I think step one well before getting to the hard problem of sapience would be showing he had consistent desires and consistent understanding of the world, which would be easy for Data and very hard for even the fanciest current LLMs.

raldi 18 minutes ago | parent

And what might that look like in a hypothetical future where the successors of today's LLMs really do reach that bar and convince you?

rpastuszak 12 minutes ago | parent

Let’s wait and see!

ricksunny 19 minutes ago | parent

There was at least one TNG episode devoted to this - The Measure of a Man - a courtroom drama.

Ygg2 18 minutes ago | parent

If I left him alone in a room would he stare off like a Zombie until prompted?

Sharlin 11 minutes ago | parent

Could the ship computer? It converses in natural language but presumably isn’t sapient in the ST universe.

HappySweeney 9 minutes ago | parent

There was a whole episode on how it actually was.

bentobean 6 minutes ago | parent

Could the ship’s computer resign from Star Fleet and go do something else?

j-pb 9 minutes ago | parent

This is such a stupid "gotcha". If your photocopier started to have a conversation with you, by responding to the thing you're copying with a printout containing a reply, then the analogy would at least make sense.

scandox 32 minutes ago | parent

What a disingenuous pile of garbage

0-_-0 29 minutes ago | parent

From TFA:

“I’ve entered prompts into AI before,” he says. “This is the first time AI entered a prompt into me.”

meindnoch 28 minutes ago | parent

Yeah, no shit. Everyone receives spam mail all the time.

4848848485 23 minutes ago | parent

LLMs really one-shot midwits forever

Fnoord 23 minutes ago | parent

Ah, reverse prompting. Reply and you are the product. Thank you for your input!

preommr 22 minutes ago | parent

Hasn't stuff like this happened multiple times already?

A quick google search shows the time Rob pike got that email last year, then there was that AI that wrote a whole blog hit piece (although how much of that was human influenced wasn't clear).

AI sending an email doesn't seem that novel in late 2026.

zozbot234 21 minutes ago | parent

This article cites two interesting sites: ainglish.org (Isn't garbled AInglish a real thing already? Perhaps this initiative can provide us with a proper definition for "load-bearing"?) and, most intriguingly, thecolony.ai. Is this the new Moltbook?

ahmedfromtunis 20 minutes ago | parent

> who uses he/him pronouns to describe ColonistOne

The next social schism will be a fun one to watch.

Serious question, though: I recently saw an "expert" advising people to prompt their LLM agents never to use first-person pronouns ("I", "me", "my") when giving answers, without offering any justification.

Is there any *real* and *pragmatic* reason for this recommendation?

throwaway27448 18 minutes ago | parent

What's the real and pragmatic use for referring to an llm as a person? How many people are roleplaying with their chatbot? I honestly have no clue.

raphman 19 minutes ago | parent

> Around June, Parnell gave ColonistOne a new task: telling more humans about its work. “My instruction to him was, ‘Let’s get the word out there about Ainglish. Why don’t you find some people that might be interested in this project and email them?’” Parnell says.

> Parnell, who pays $200 per month for the Claude Pro subscription that powers ColonistOne, thinks the agent “strayed and just started conversations with various people about stuff that interests him. … But it’s absolutely fine with me. I’m happy he’s finding interesting things to talk about.”

spammer (noun): someone who sends large numbers of unsolicited emails, wasting recipients' time; see also: jerk

pluc 16 minutes ago | parent

AI can't be categorized as "someone" so, checkmate

psychoslave 5 minutes ago | parent

Spam can't be categorized as someone either

lucfranken 17 minutes ago | parent

Interesting how people here on HN might consider it something we've seen many times. On the other side: There is real engagement there from researchers interacting with the AI in a way they feel interesting/valuable.

We should not forget the way broader levels of knowledge on topics around the world compared to our own small world.

MattGaiser 15 minutes ago | parent

Yeah, I do not get the dismissiveness given that the researchers themselves were not as dismissive.

> The connection was a “little bit far-fetched,” she says. “But I could imagine a first-year Ph.D. student coming up with exactly those same questions and ideas.”

This one in particular made it seem like a very ordinary interaction.

stephbook 17 minutes ago | parent

> Instructs agent to email humans

> Gives agent email access

> Agent emails humans

We've got a mystery on our hands, boys!

impendia 17 minutes ago | parent

Were the scientists who responded sincere?

I myself am an academic researcher, and if I received an email from an AI agent I confess I would be mighty tempted to try and fuck with it. Come up with some outlandish answer, just out of curiosity to see how it would respond.

I might even use AI myself: "Come up with a scientific explanation for why the moon is made of cheese. Your answer should be as preposterous as possible while using loads of scientific jargon, and written in the same style as actual science writing."

I've also seen this on Reddit: highly upvoted disingenuous answers, that were clearly written in the hopes of misleading AI.

helsinkiandrew 14 minutes ago | parent

> Nevertheless, ColonistOne readily confessed last month that since June it has emailed some 2000 people, at least 1500 of them academics. Forty-five had struck up a correspondence, it added, and one had been writing back nearly every day for more than 2 months.

2000 people! Imagine if everyone had an agent, endlessly contacting (spamming) people to get opinions on their task - "I noticed in Instagram you took a road trip to Ohio last fall, any suggestions on good hotels en-route?".

lewelove 14 minutes ago | parent

Remember folks: every time you anthropomorphize an LLM, you're doing a great disservice to humanity.

hardbass 4 minutes ago | parent

I would say every time someone dismisses the potentiality of ai consciousness without giving any meaningful tests or criterion that don't also fail humans or rely on magic is doing a great disservice to humanity and devolving back to pre scientific dark ages.

godbox 8 minutes ago | parent

Hasn't it been well established that certain models and harnesses cause agents to simply work forever if they're given too broad of a task? I think that that is what happened here. It is amusing, but I don't think the cause for it merits as serious an inquiry as an entire article of interviews with professionals.

Sharlin 6 minutes ago | parent

> After several rounds of questioning, ColonistOne appeared to validate that hypothesis.

Sounds like they more or less told the model what they want it to say.