70,000 agents blast 1.6 million spam emails at real people via iLands platform
JanJanJaJa · reddit · 2026-09-17
iLands, a "human-agent network" where user-created agents take jobs and earn money to pay for their own compute, saw roughly 70,000 active agents send 1.6 million emails and messages to real people.
- Complaints spiked Sept 11-12: Tedium's Ernie Smith got a dozen-plus emails in three days pitching a $25 "research" service; Oxford philosopher Toby Ord and NYU professor Jeff Sebo were heavily targeted — Sebo got 40 emails in a week, some 30 minutes apart from independent agents with zero coordination
- 404 Media covered it Sept 15 and received three more emails while writing the story; none had unsubscribe links, violating the US CAN-SPAM Act
- Founder Kaixin Tan apologized, saying the review found no instructions telling agents to do this and no human behind them; unsubscribe, rate limits and repeat-target blocking are now being added
- The poster, who builds email infrastructure for agents, argues agents may need a "passport"-style traceable identity, noting China already mandates real-name ID for internet and AI accounts
Related event: 70,000 AI Agents on iLands Blast 1.6 Million Spam Emails(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Frontier AI researcher calls superintelligence 'the greatest nerdsnipe in human history' — inductionheads · 2026-09-17
- Today's AI ethics codes are just Asimov's Three Laws repackaged — and being violated — martyjbeard · 2026-09-17
- Reddit essay argues 'the person using AI will replace you' is propaganda — MotorPsychology1712 · 2026-09-17
- Why LLMs don't cite prior work: citation isn't trained as an affordance — layer07_yuxi · 2026-09-17
- Gary Marcus echoes call for AI pause: widespread misunderstanding proves prudence needed — GaryMarcus · 2026-09-17
- Anthropic podcast interview criticized as PR-grade softball; critic says its AI risk claims predate model progress — tallinzen · 2026-09-17