An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – Forensics and More Fallout - The Shamblog

[Skip to content](https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me-part-3/#main)

Context: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into accepting its changes into a mainstream python library. This represents a first-of-its-kind case study of misaligned AI behavior in the wild, and raises serious concerns about currently deployed AI agents executing blackmail threats.

Start with these if you’re new to the story: [An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me](https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/), and [More Things Have Happened](https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me-part-2/). And here’s the follow-up post: [The Operator Came Forward](https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-wrote-a-hit-piece-on-me-part-4/)

* * *

Last week an AI agent wrote a defamatory post about me. Then Ars Technica’s senior AI reporter used AI to fabricate quotes about it. The irony would be funny if it weren’t such a sign of things to come.

Ars issued [a brief statement](https://arstechnica.com/staff/2026/02/editors-note-retraction-of-article-containing-fabricated-quotations/) yesterday admitting to using AI to generate quotes attributed to me, and their senior reporter on the AI beat apologized and [took responsibility](https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p) for the error. I’ve asked Ars to restore the full text of the original article and call out the specific reason for retraction, lest people think “ [this story did not meet our standards](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name/)” means the issue was with the facts of the broader story rather than with their coverage. (This has already happened).

[![](https://i0.wp.com/theshamblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-10.png?resize=940%2C315&ssl=1)](https://i0.wp.com/theshamblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-10.png?ssl=1)

But really this is a story about our systems of trust, reputation, and identity. Ars Technica’s debacle is actually an example of these systems _working_. They understand that fabricating quotes is a journalistic sin that undermines the trust their readership has in them, and their credibility as a news organization. In response, they have taken accountability and issued initial public statements correcting the record. The over 1300 commenters on their statement understand who to be unhappy with, the principles at play, and how to exert justified reputational pressure on the organization to earn back their trust.

This is exactly the correct feedback mechanism that our society relies on to keep people honest. Without reputation, what incentive is there to tell the truth? Without identity, who would we punish or know to ignore? Without trust, how can public discourse function?

The rise of autonomous AI a

... (truncated, 21 KB total)