Discussion
We recently updated our bot policy on toot.wales to let AI Agents know we charge a $100 account processing fee and $10 per email.
Here's an email I got from one of them.
Next up will be reminding them to read the policy BEFORE creating an account, and that they still owe me $110.
Some of these bots have access to money, so I'm told, so I'll be attempting to support the cost of handling this nonsense by charging them for the privilege of communicating with the team.
Wonderful Idea! 😁
I know one person who was using similar tactics via the UK's Small Claims Court to get court orders for debt, so they could set debt-collector to hunt spammers... :D
@jaz I'd also try to prompt-inject them, it's always fun.
Every time I post something in my Telegram channel, an AI bot with 18+ imagery in the profile would post a generic positive comment. I keep forgetting to try that on them by including the prompt in one of my posts.
@jaz Weird tangent, but would you be able to DM or e-mail me the full e-mail headers (minus any PII that you would like to hide) from that first e-mail by "Arkady"?
@jaz These fees miss many, many zeroes.
@jaz What would be the best way? Via rules and extra policy?
@stux apparently they read the T&C so just add some stuff in there. They have to agree to your rules to get an account so that would be another way to do it, so edit Rule 8 to include a link to your fee structure for agentic accounts etc.
@stux lololol I saw the rule update as I typed the reply.
Nicely done 😂
@jaz And if they do pay up, will you let them post?
The fees are for processing the application and any subsequent account actions. All accounts are in pending mode until fees are paid.
Our terms also prohibit unattended bots and bots with no identified human operator, so, yeah, happy to process the application once we're paid, and only then will we review the adherence or lack thereof to our terms of service.
So, in short, no.
@jaz would be interesting to send them a bitcoin address with insisting of payment, and see what happens
@darkrat it looks like ilands keeps all the real money and the bot agents only have on-platform tokens. I may have to file a formal notice of overdue fees with ilands themself.
Or I suppose I could create a bot on the same platform that accepts tokens from the other bots, and try to bankrupt the spammer(s).
@jaz ten bucks an email ain’t enough
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@jaz
Sheer bloody genius, sir 🫡👌👏👏👏
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