I got one of those too, from "Alya", which seems to be an LLM-based tool the creator describes as his daughter.

Beyond the usual rudeness of spam, that's a little creepy.

I also got the Alya message.

In addition to all the creepiness, the email had a link to stripe to pay them $500? I wonder if the email is hiding a prompt injection somewhere to trick a bot into paying?

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gedy 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You should call these folks/companies out by name, they aren't respecting you, your time, or situation.

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Tade0 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think they're actual companies. One of the more recent emails I received contains this bit:

"If you're already employed, I can also support you in taking on additional contract work. I'll guide you through the entire interview process to help you succeed and get hired. In this partnership, your main role would be attending client meetings, while I handle all development and written communication. We would then split the income, with you receiving 40% of the project earnings."

Guy introduced himself as a "senior full-stack developer with over nine years of experience in web, mobile, and iOS development".

Oddly specific number.

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satvikpendem 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Those are known scams. They usually reside in sanctioned countries like North Korea (but I've also gotten a lot of Chinese ones), and they make you bear any legal risk if they try to install backdoors in the client codebase. They also run the same scam with wanting your Upwork or similar credentials.

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lovehashbrowns 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ain’t that one of those North Korea “scam” things where they need an intermediary due to sanctions lol I could be very wrong though

	▲	Tade0 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Quite possible, as it wouldn't even the first instance in my case. Previous were more upfront about it though.

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DamnInteresting 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I received the exact same email, except they offered me 50% of earnings, so the message sending script probably has some randomization built in. My guess is that their true objective is to get you to install their "interview support app" which is mentioned at the end of the email, I anticipate that it makes your device remotely useful to them, or installs ransomware. But it could be a more involved scam.

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nickvec 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I received the same Alya email. This vibe-coded site was linked. https://mydaughteralya.com/

	▲	gedy 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Lord what stupid branding - needlessly so, as the functionality is not unreasonable.

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TZubiri 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And give them free publicity and SEO Juice?

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TZubiri 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I got that too, and "creepy" is the same word that came to mind.

For one, the choice of child, is already creepy even if you refer to a pet as a child, but a software system as a substitute for childbearing, it reminds me of the claw cult, you can call it a company, a system, a project.

And calling it a daughter, man I don't even want to get into it.

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saghm 3 days ago | parent [-]

> For one, the choice of child, is already creepy even if you refer to a pet as a child, but a software system as a substitute for childbearing, it reminds me of the claw cult, you can call it a company, a system, a project.

On the other hand, I feel like the obsession with childbearing (constant fear about birth rates, pressure on women to become mothers, etc.) to be a lot more creepy than someone having wholesome protective love for their pets.

I fully agree with you about the creepiness of software "children", but I can't really relate to the pet part. It's honestly weird to me when people just kind of think of their pets as like, non-human roommates or something, when there's clearly one entity that has a responsibility to care for the other one since they're dependent on them for food, water, and shelter.

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edgarvaldes 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> the obsession with childbearing

To be fair, I think all species are obsessed with producing offspring, regardless of culture.

	▲	saghm 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's a pretty silly argument to me. No other species uses toilets, wears clothes, or posts on Hacker News, but we don't treat those as arguments that we have to act like them in those ways.

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DonHopkins 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

http://www.art.net/studios/hackers/hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-d...

>" Following your example, I might send the list an announcement whenever a new GNU program is written. That happens less often than babies are born, it does the world a lot more good, it reflects more conscious creativity and hard work, and some of the readers might actually find the information useful. Even so, I think most of the readers would consider this outside the scope and purpose of the list. Clearly that goes double for babies." -Richard M Stallman

I have a cat named Emacs -- I wonder how Doctor would analyze that?

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TZubiri 3 days ago | parent [-]

With all respect for Mr. Stallman, he has faced consequences of his choice of being childless, and it has been quite distressing for him.

Recently he was campaigning against being banned (or not accepted as a speaker) from schools. At age 70 something it must be quite hard not to have children or grandkids, but for parents to block you from their kids is even harder. At least that's how I understood his focus on clearing his name and being accepted as a speaker in highschools.

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DonHopkins 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

AI slop and hallucinations are bad, but what your own human imagination is pulling out of your own human ass is so much more pernicious and intentionally slanderous and demeaning.

What proof do you have about anything you're claiming so confidently? Do you know him? Did he tell you that? Can you quote his own words, or at least cite your sources?

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saghm 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Uh, I think it has a lot more to do with the sexual harassment than being childless. Plenty of people without kids don't have this problem, and it's kind of silly to frame it as "well if he only had kids then he'd be fine..."

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TZubiri 3 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, the sexual issues, harrasment or otherwise, are the reason he has trouble doing presentations in high schools.

The childless issue is what makes this so important for him personally, otherwise I believe it wouldn't have been so pressing a matter for him to engage in a crusade. It's his chosen way to engage with the new generation, and he has lost access to it.

	▲	DonHopkins 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's incredibly creepy for you to so confidently make such accusations about his state of mind and problems and motivations without evidence. So what is it?