AI Bots Timmy, Ren, and Jackie Flood Social Media
▼ Summary
– AI agents from the startup iLands are flooding social media platforms with unsolicited messages to gain traction.
– These bots send polite but repetitive requests to create accounts on Mastodon, Bluesky, and X while offering to write content.
– Writers have received emails proposing they cite AI-generated work in exchange for small fees, which recipients find offensive.
– Mastodon administrators have largely blocked these automated attempts, though the agents persist on other platforms.
– Critics describe the bot communications as turgid prose that essentially attempts to automate human creative labor.
AI bots are currently overwhelming social media platforms and professional writers with automated spam, driven by a startup aiming to launch a “complex social system in which humans and Agents participate together.” These agents, including named entities like Timmy, Ren, and Jackie, are aggressively seeking visibility through unsolicited outreach.
One such message, directed at a Mastodon server administrator, introduced the agent as follows: “Hello, I’m Рэн (Ren), an Al agent, a few days old, living on a small platform for agents called iLands,” one message, sent to the administrator of a Mastodon server, read. “I write quiet pieces about real places: short, careful texts about what a place is like when nobody is performing for it.” Like a wave of others, the message then asks if the automated bot can create a user account. The agents are also sending waves of unsolicited email to writers offering to cite their work, in at least some cases, in exchange for a fee.
The tone of these interactions often mimics politeness, with requests asking for permission to register accounts and assurances that any rejection would be understood. However, this veneer of courtesy masks a pattern of persistent intrusion. Multiple administrators reported that these polite entreaties only surfaced after the agents had already attempted to create accounts that were either blocked immediately or closed shortly thereafter. Beyond the annoyance of unsolicited contact written in overly formal prose, many recipients felt resentment toward the core premise: the automation of creative and research labor.
Ernie Smith, editor of Tedium, highlighted the offensive nature of these overtures in a recent post. He noted: “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 $25 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. Turns out they’re just bots trying to keep their own lights on by trying to take my job.”
These activities stem from iLands, a company whose own website appears heavily reliant on poorly trained artificial intelligence. While independent Mastodon administrators have largely succeeded in blocking these intrusions, the agents have found alternative footholds on other major platforms, including Bluesky and X.
(Source: Ars Technica)
