What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
UPDATE: Link was pulled; see below.
Discussion
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@mttaggart
I don't know what is real anymore, holy shit.
If I'm reading things correctly Ars hallucinated the quotes in the article but still linked to this blog post correctly, right?
https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/
@mttaggart this is crazy. The Ai bots commenting under his blog is just rubbing salt on the wound.
@mttaggart simply amazing, in the worst possible way.
@mttaggart I am shocked, shocked that an article under the name of Ars' resident bot licker contains hallucinations.
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@mttaggart A 404 without an apology is a terrible look for them. In my life you get one shot. If you slop me once I will never use your service again...
@mttaggart Makes me want to delete AT from my regular sources, but I'll hold off. They should issue an apology if they haven't.
"If irony were made of strawberries we'd all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now."
@mttaggart ALAS, THE MOONSHARK HAS EATEN YOUR LINK.
@inpc Keep reading the thread friendo
AI isn't intended to be accurate, useful, or productive.
It's just automated information pollution like Steve Bannon's version of Russian "flood the zone with sh*t" disinformation.
Look at the investors behind AI.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE
They don't have to fly planes into buildings anymore to destroy democracy & fry the planet.
https://breakingdefense.com/2026/02/future-of-military-ai-in-saudi-arabia-ai-enhanced-or-ai-native/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/saudi-arabia-ai-exporter.html
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@drsbaitso Was just about to post this, thank you.
@mttaggart Also, this is not a good situation. Ars has some serious explaining to do.
@mttaggart archive dot org link since they took it down: https://web.archive.org/web/20260213194851/https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name/
UPDATE: They pulled the story, but I had it up and had SingleFile in my browser, so: https://mttaggart.neocities.org/ars-whoopsie
@mttaggart thanks for documenting this. I've referenced your thread here
https://aidirtylist.info/citations/ars-technica-publishes-slop-filled-article-about-open-claw/
@mttaggart I'd have more respect for them if they replaced it with a retraction page. But then, I have low expectations for Ars.
They surely pulled it and it now has their moonshark 404 page, the moonshark ate the AI slop.
@mttaggart Oh, I wish you'd gotten the comments too. I can only imagine what some familiar handles would have had to say in them.
@theotherbrook Someone else in these replies did!
@mttaggart I happened to be reading in the comment section before the article got pulled.
Here is Aurich's last post saying the article was pulled and they're going to be investigating, but there probably won't be any answers until Monday and they'll update readers then.
@mttaggart So it was a double slop article? -_-
@catsalad Slop on slop on slop. Literally.
@mttaggart @catsalad
slop on slop action 🫦 send toot
@tehfishman @catsalad Where do you think you are, Moltbook?
@mttaggart @catsalad Moltbook is like a back and forth forever with the same slop situation ))><((
@mttaggart I suppose one thing you can say about old newspapers - no one can pretend an article was never printed
@mttaggart of course they did, but now they'll need to explain how they managed to let that get published
This scoop brought to you by the TTI Intel Feed, which also routinely beats commercial threat intel to the punch on important emerging threats.
Putting this here so all can see it. Ars forum thread where the pull and investigation are mentioned: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/journalistic-standards.1511650/
@mttaggart Locking the comments seems pretty... bad? I mean, one of their authors generated slop, and one of their editors approved slop. Is it more complicated or...? (I'm being a little flippant, but this is a terrible look for Ars already.)
@theorangetheme I think the lock might be SOP for a pulled story. And mods tend not to like rampant speculation.
@mttaggart @theorangetheme I'm genuinely confused about how this was allowed to happen. I tend to assume Ars has better editorial processes than some of the places I've worked, and both writers have long-term specialisations. My most charitable explanation is that someone created a version that they though would be funny and that was accidentally published. Very curious to see what their investigation yields.
Aaand the full comments thread from the original story: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name.1511649/
@mttaggart Fuck! I thought that was real
@staringatclouds The event is real. The quotes in the story were hallucinated.
@mttaggart a "we have hallucinated too and have pulled the article that was here before" would have been better. Good thing you saved it.
@mttaggart Crap, they DID?! I still have it open! Anything you want before it goes into the void?
@mttaggart And thus we close it.
@mttaggart I got the comments though.
@mttaggart Seems they took it down. Just wow.
@mttaggart i expect better from kyle; i do not trust benj edwards at all. between him and eric berger doing free pr for elon musk ars is in a sorry state right now
@mttaggart @mhoye Looks like @arstechnica just pulled the article.
@HitokiriEric @mhoye @arstechnica Maybe, but Pepperidge Farm remembers: https://mttaggart.neocities.org/ars-whoopsie
@mttaggart jfc. As an Ars subscriber, I am furious
@jalefkowit @mttaggart I'm really saddened that Benj's work seems to have fallen off. I trusted his writing, once.
@SnoopJ @jalefkowit @mttaggart I am tempted to go on a tagging spree but out of respect for your mentions I will refrain. but what the hell, someone needs to be held to account for this
@SnoopJ @jalefkowit @mttaggart in this day and age I do not want to go around saying reporters should be fired, I get that it’s hard out there, but this needs to be a MAJOR scandal for ars and for Benj and Kyle personally
@glyph @jalefkowit @mttaggart at the very least, it is egregious malpractice.
@SnoopJ @glyph @jalefkowit I can not imagine an explanation of how this occurred that isn't damning.
@mttaggart and here I was, just recently reflecting that I should probably be reading Ars more based on some other coverage. Come on!!
@mttaggart What on earth?
@cR0w I confirmed myself. Not one of the quotes is real.
@mttaggart It's just too on the nose.