Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad at Digital Dopplegangers:
A few weeks ago, a curious story began circulating among software developers. Scott Shambaugh, an engineer working on an open-source project rejected a piece of code submitted by an AI coding agent. There is nothing unusual about this as maintainers reject pull requests all the time. However, soon afterwards, something unusual happened. A blog post appeared criticizing Scott Shambaugh by name. The article questioned his behavior and framed the rejection as unfair or obstructive. This also looked like a familiar artifact of internet culture i.e., a grievance post or a reputational attack. The difference this time was that the author was not a human. It was an AI agent!
We are beginning to see the first hints of a new phenomenon i.e., systems capable not only of writing code or answering questions, but of producing narratives about people. Machines have been learning how to analyze behavior but now they are able to assign motives, and frame events as stories. The next step is to gossip, and it need not be negative all the time. Anthropologists and Sociologists have observed that in small communities it helps distribute reputation, enforce social norms, and determine whom to trust. Long before search engines or review systems existed, gossip served as a decentralized reputation database.
More here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.