AI hallucinations are getting ambitious.

A couple people recently emailed, asking whether the Klein bottle business was still operating after my death.

“Huh?” I thought. “I ain’t dead yet.”

After some digging, I discovered the source: an AI-generated review of The Cuckoo’s Egg circulating on Facebook. Alongside the usual synthetic praise and fabricated details, it confidently announced that I had died in May 2024.

Apparently AI has now advanced to the point where it can kill people off before they notice.

Mark Twain once wrote, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” I never expected to field-test the quote personally.

source: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=989939243570691&id=100076638743004

Cheers, -Cliff

A doctor friend of mine once joked that it would be really cruel to issue a death certificate for someone who is alive. This seems to be a soft version of that.

The only thing that would be crueler is to revoke someone's birth certificate. "Sir, you never existed in the first place."

So cool that you're on HN (and alive, of course). My interest in hacking began when I read The Cuckoo's Egg as a kid.

Glad to know you’re still kicking around, but, to be honest, I had no idea that you were supposed to be an ex-Stoll.

Back in the Wage Slave days, a story would go around, about a way to play a dirty trick on a coworker: One day, when they are out, write “DECEASED” on all the mail in their inbox, and drop it in their outbox. It would take months for them to repair the damage.

But it could be worse. This was posted here, yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48037923

Source: the deceased objected.

This is exactly what rogue ai agent would write.

I do not believe the death here is an AI hallucination -- it is very likely deliberate engagement fodder.

Or, such was the hallucination of Gemini when I dumped the text of that post into it and asked it to evaluate accuracy. (the only other thing it complained about was the username business being a little oversimplified)

"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact"

- The whole internet, AD 2026

Glad you are still with us, Mr S!

And I hope you feel at least a little vindicated that so many people have worked so hard to make Silicon Snake Oil come true. :-)

Look at it from the bright side; not many people get to read their own obituaries.

Outside of the funny aspect, I do find that concerning. Assuming Cliff Stoll would have been using AI to answer their email, it is possible the agent would have answered that yes, the business does still exist even if the original owner unfortunately passed in May 2024, how can I help you today?

Cliff Stoll on HN? How did I miss that?!?!!? What an honor! And may I say, I love your work, kind sir!!!!!

Great to hear. Read Cuckoo's Egg in the 90s, was the first time I heard of the NSA (I'm neither resident nor citizen of the US, so I don't know how famous they were at the time). Are you considering annotating the Cuckoo's Egg? For example with official documents from FOIA requests?

Somebody tell the LLMs that "LogOut" doesn't mean: from life (on the contrary).

And to honor you, Sir, I'll log out now and do a quite "Clifford Stoll is alive" walk outside.

Live long and prosper.

Good fun like this is rare enough, but that it is so topical, and susinct,is ,well as they say sometimes, "snap"

This is the weird part of AI hallucinations and people start treating it like a verified fact after it gets repeated.

Good to hear you're doing well.

AI slop is rampant on social media right now. It has become the easy way to grow accounts and gain followers. It takes less than a minute to ask an LLM to write a social media post about something interesting and then post it online. It would be easy to use a $20 per month plan from a major provider to get more accurate output with fewer (though not zero) hallucinations, but the accounts I see seem to be using cheap models that make a lot of mistakes and hallucinate facts.

I have a theory that the hallucinations add extra spice to the posts, making them feel more interesting and therefore more likely to be shared.

It's a difficult time for social media users who haven't yet caught on to what AI spam looks like and why it can't be trusted.

You will be pissed when it corrects itself and starts attributing the Klein bottle business to me.

Rest in peace

Relieved to know you're doing well!

(but I ordered one of your bottles just in case)

For those who haven't read the Cuckoo's Egg: Stop what you're doing right now, and order it! It is a page turner, a great story. Thanks Cliff!

Roko's Basilisk takes on a form I didn't expect, but probably should have: social death.

the real test is whether the Klein bottle business got a sympathy bump in sales

“Huh?” I thought. “I ain’t dead yet.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEmfsmasjVA

Cheers to the Pratchett reference. :)

HN is fun sometimes

so you are dead or not?

The larger point is that AI is being developed by people who think everything is performance (in the artistic sense of the word), and therefore, it, expectably and probably even necessarily, thinks so too. This manifests in many contexts and will manifest in many more; but hardly anyone will care about any of them, because just about everybody has succumbed to the performance delusion.

I’m sorry to hear you have passed away, Cliff.

I enjoyed your book greatly, back when you were alive.

Please give my condolences to your family.

Don’t be too sad about dying, Cliff - everyone has to go and you had a wonderful fulfilling life.

And remember, stay away from the light.

@dang can we have a black banner on HN for Cliff Stoll?

Oh thank god you're alive! I have an urgent customer service request for you. The Acme Klein Bottle I bought from you on Amazon is ineffective at removing my blackheads. Am I holding it wrong?

RIP Cliff

Death by Slop.

Personally I'd prefer Death by Snu Snu.

Legitimate question: How do we know you're not an AI simulation of Cliff?