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Comment by drob518 | Hacker News Reader

Not defending the machines here, but why is this annoying beyond the deluge of spam we all get everyday in any case. Of course AI will be used to spam and target us. Every new technology will be used to do that. Was that surprising to Pike? Why not just hit delete and move on, like we do with spam all the time in any case? I don’t get the exceptional outrage. Is it annoying? Yes, surely. But does it warrant an emotional outburst? No, not really.

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Sometimes it just hits different. One spam/marketing email I got, pre-AI, was

    Subject: {Name of one of my direct reports}
    Body: Need to talk about {name} ASAP.

I get around 30 marketing emails per day that make it through the spam filter; from a purely logical perspective this should have been the same as any other, but I still remember this one because the tone, the way it used only a person's name in the subject, no mention of the company or what they were selling, just really pissed me off.

I imagine it's the same in this situation; the subject makes it seem like a sincere thank you from someone, and then you open it up and it's AI slop. To borrow ChatGPT-style phrasing: it's not just spam, it's insulting.

Sure, it’s insulting. I get it. Agree 100%. But then what? Does getting upset about it help anything? I used to get upset when spam first started invading my otherwise clean inbox. After 25+ years of receiving spam, I never had that anger/annoyance result in a reduction of anything.

Yes, it embarrasses the people who think this kind of thing is a good idea and ideally generates behavioral change.

Day-to-day spam senders know what they are doing is not legal or wanted and I know they know.

Here not only are the senders apparently happily associating their actual legal names with the spam but frame the sending as "a good deed" and seem to honestly see it as smart branding.

We don't want the Overton window wherever they are.

I cannot possibly oppose this take more; you're perfectly embodying the "slow frog boiling" mentality that must be fought everyday.

Curse, yell, fight. Never accept things just because they've grown to be common.

I’m all for opposing things where such opposition has a chance of making a difference. I just don’t see that here.

I think you are seriously misjudging how situation is effecting people. I was reading this article[0] the other day and I agree with most of it.

[0]: https://fortune.com/2025/12/23/silicon-valleys-tone-deaf-tak...

Thank you for linking that article. I think it expresses exactly where the anti AI sentiment is coming from. With this background understanding I think it is reasonable to see unsolicited AI emails - that deanonymised your address in the first place - not only as spam, but as a threat.

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