Comment by jerf
3 days ago
I've seen some other suggestions of that idea in the full HN conversation, which I'm reacting to.
On the one hand I find it a bizarre approach to running a scam. On the other hand I'm having a hard time coming up with any theory of mind on my end as to why this person would solicit $5000+ from the people they just harassed. Sheer cluelessness does fit the facts, though.
One context I could imagine is a young person with shaky grasp of English trying to come up with an interesting school/university project via conversations with an LLM set up as an OpenClaw agent.
It's got the right combinations of inexperience, cluelessness, panic, expectations that Westerners are rich, and hopes of others being willing to fix their mistake.
If you’ve not encountered the clueless LLM cowboys who would do then and then blame the victim for it not working, you’ve not met many people yet. This round of hype provides new and shiny footguns which are Never the shooter’s fault.
A highly publicized recent example: the author (of a book about genAI!) who doesn’t understand why he should be held responsible for the fake quotes he copy and pasted into his book from ChatGPT [1].
> I do not understand why it's my job as an author to play whack-a-mole with a multibillion-dollar company who puts hallucinations into their feed as a business practice.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/future-of-truth-ai-interview/
How about sheer panic after seeing the bill?