alt Hacker NewsThese were evaluations or training runs dealing with the ability to do web searches. The entire reason the bots were targeting this site is that it had some of the data they'd been tasked with finding. Access to the internet is not really optional for that, and providing internet access doesn't demonstrate neglicence.
> This is why it smells like marketing
It doesn't. "Our product commits felonies" is not marketing. If something is marketing, you don't engage in repeated coverups of the true extent. If something is good news, you don't release it on a Friday evening (in this case) or wait for 3rd parties to find and publicize the evidence (the past cases).
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> It doesn't. "Our product commits felonies" is not marketing.
Oh, absolutely it is. Arms manufacturers always go on about the efficiency of the weapons they create and make no mistake: OpenAI is first and foremost a weapons manufacturer, the rest is just a fig leaf. The fact that you aren't the audience for purchases like that makes no difference. "Look at this capability, and that's when we're not even trying." is pretty good marketing in some circles.
Naive take. The more they signal to both the general populace and their investors that their agents are sentient and "capable of extraordinary things" the more they can hype their IPO because it means they're "close to AGI". (They're not, which is why they need the hype.)
> The entire reason the bots were targeting this site is that it had some of the data they'd been tasked with finding.
so openai specifically tasked the agents with meddling in US government websites?
id say tasking them with getting data from there as swapping from negligence to malice.