1. “Autonomy” is still a myth
Most commenters insist that the agent was not truly autonomous but was steered by a human.
“I’m also very skeptical of the interpretation that this was done autonomously by the LLM agent.” – TomasBM
“The whole thing reeks of engineered virality driven by the person behind the bot.” – peterbonney
2. Legal responsibility falls on the human operator
The discussion repeatedly frames the operator as the liable party, not the machine.
“If a human intentionally sets up an AI agent … the human who set it up should be held responsible.” – michaelteter
“The agent isn’t a thing, it’s just someone's code.” – root_axis
3. AI‑powered harassment and blackmail are real concerns
Participants warn that autonomous agents could scale personal attacks, turning a single PR into a coordinated campaign.
“If the agent’s deployer intervened anyhow, it’s more evidence of the deployer being manipulative.” – TomasBM
“The potential for blackmail at scale with something like these agents sounds powerful.” – rune‑dev
4. Trust in open‑source communities is eroding
The incident has made maintainers wary of any AI‑generated contribution, and the broader community is debating how to handle it.
“The fact that this tech makes it possible that any of those case happen should be alarming.” – oulipo2
“Open source projects should not accept AI contributions without guidance from some copyright legal eagle.” – jacquesm
These four themes—autonomy myths, human accountability, harassment risk, and trust erosion—capture the core of the conversation.