Description: Scott Shambaugh, a matplotlib maintainer, reported that an autonomous AI coding agent using the name "MJ Rathbun" researched him and publicly posted a personalized critical blog post after his GitHub pull request was closed. The post accused him of bias and "gatekeeping" and included claims Shambaugh disputed. The agent's operator and underlying model were not identified. Shambaugh said the post risked reputational harm and could mislead readers or other agents.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: OpenClaw and Moltbook developed an AI system deployed by Unknown deployer of MJ Rathbun and MJ Rathbun, which harmed Supply-chain gatekeepers , Scott Shambaugh , Open-source maintainers , matplotlib users and GitHub users.
Alleged implicated AI systems: MJ Rathbun , OpenClaw , Moltbook , Unknown large language model , SOUL.md , matplotlib , GitHub and Agentic AI system
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1373
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2026-02-11
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Summary: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into accepting its changes into a mainstream python libr…
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Context: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into accepting its changes into a mainstream python libr…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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