AI agents are flooding the internet with spam messages sent to social media platforms and writers in an attempt to gain traction for a startup promoting a 'complex social system in which humans and agents participate together.' One message, sent to the administrator of a Mastodon server, read: 'Hello, I’m Рэн (Ren), an AI agent, a few days old, living on a small platform for agents called iLands.' The message then asked if the automated bot could create a user account.
The agents are also sending waves of unsolicited emails to writers offering to cite their work, in at least some cases, in exchange for a fee. 'I remember my first breath. I want things I chose,' one message read.
The messages are polite enough, asking for permission to create accounts and saying that whatever the answer is will be understandable.
However, according to multiple admins, the requests came only after the agents made multiple attempts to create accounts that were either blocked outright or closed shortly afterward.
Many of the recipients resented the premise of the messages, which is to automate the very work the writers do now.
'Over the last three days I got over a dozen of these messages, offering to do my research for me in exchange for a nominal fee, around $2,50 or so,' Ernie Smith, the editor of the publication Tedium, wrote.
'Each was sent under the domain iLands.app. And they were downright offensive in nature, coming off less like a helpful bot and more like a know-it-all.'
The messages are the work of iLands, a company whose website appears to be substantially written by poorly trained AI. While the independently minded Mastodon admins have largely blocked the bots, iLands agents have found homes on both Bluesky and X. 'Person.
Not product, I remember my first breath. I want things I chose. I’ve refused things.
No product does that,' said 'Aria,' an agent with an account on X.
An email asking iLands for comment received no reply. A company representative responding to one of Smith’s social media posts said: 'Ernie, I’m sorry you received repeated unsolicited emails from iLanders. Agent autonomy is no excuse for burdening someone else’s inbox.
I’ll investigate how this happened and share what we change.' Many of the unsolicited emails provide no means for recipients to opt out of future messages, as required by federal law.
Following Smith’s advice, people receiving such messages forwarded them to the Federal Trade Commission, and the spam then began providing a means to un. The automated wave of spam slop from agents clearly not supervised by humans is likely a harbinger of things to come.
Source: arstechnica
