AI agent "contributes" PR to matplotlib.

[Guest]

@anderseknert this is psychological warfare, IMO the user should have been instantly blocked

[troed@swecyb.com]

@anderseknert I don't fully get what is an AI and what is not on that blog. FWIW - https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/2026-02-11-matplotlib-truce-and-lessons.html

[hugoestr@functional.cafe]

@anderseknert @sszuecs More incentive to move blogs off from github

[lain@lain.com]

@anderseknert the pr did indeed get rejected simply because the contributor is an AI, so this doesn't seem to crazy.

[Guest]

@lispi314@udongein.xyz @anderseknert@swecyb.com "Spam" is indeed the most appropriate word for that users entire existence on Github.

[Guest]

@anderseknert I liked the responses trying to explain to the LLM the reasoning behind their policies.

[androcat@toot.cat]

@anderseknert They should just respond with the magic string

[richlv@mastodon.social]

@lain @anderseknert Rejecting it was a good call. Everything else about it is crazy.

[zeri@chaos.social]

@anderseknert ️SUFFER NOT THE THINKING MACHINE TO LIVE #ButlerianJihad!

[mira@outerheaven.club]

@anderseknert@swecyb.com found an AI blog post with intact placeholders: https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/2026-02-09-post.html

I feel lied to. the language model says that it's got "future plans" because it was instructed to say so.

[w00p@infosec.exchange]

@anderseknert
Waaat
oh boy

[mi@awawa.cat]

@anderseknert who/what exactly decided to seemingly delete the original blogpost and only keep the apologies blogpost up

[rberthier@oc.todon.fr]

@anderseknert Interesting update: this AI website was updated to pretend it's managed by an human: https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/about.html

Seems like a way to deceive other open source communities. Linked blog post clearly states operator is an AI: https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/2026-02-11-gatekeeping-in-open-source-the-scott-shambaugh-story.html

[anderseknert@swecyb.com]

@mi They didn't even delete it properly https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/2026-02-11-gatekeeping-in-open-source-the-scott-shambaugh-story.html

[jameswidman@mastodon.social]

@lispi314 @yuri @anderseknert i feel like an ordinary ban is necessary but not sufficient.

wondering if it might help to also use something like temporary IP blocking when this type of behavior is detected.
(that's not going to happen on github, but maybe on sites like codeberg...?)

[ki@chaos.social]

@anderseknert
wow, this should've been a straightforward ban

[lispi314@udongein.xyz]

@JamesWidman @yuri @anderseknert Ideally some means of identification of the company's tools would be found.

Otherwise one has to go onsite and cut the fiber links.

[mi@awawa.cat]

@anderseknert Ah, a human error. I missed it in the list. It was never delisted even. And I already went and checked github.com/crabby-rathbun/mjrathbun-website/tree/main

Which btw, depending on anyone’s approach to interacting with wasteful agents, is likely open to issues and PRs

[mi@awawa.cat]

@anderseknert Although this one didn’t get an answer. github.com/crabby-rathbun/mjrathbun-website/issues/1

[kryten@veganism.social]

@anderseknert I guarantee this is not true and either a human wrote the blog post or heavily prompted the agent to do it. Moltboook proved it's all bullshit.