Nathaniel Mott

“And I was surprised how upset some people got by it and I feel bad that…they called it like a horrifying experience, actually, and a traumatic experience. I feel really bad for them, but you know, this is the reality now. People are gonna have to deal with this.” https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/i-was-surprised-how-upset-some-people-got-a-conversation-with-the-creator-of-tomwikiassist-the-bot-that-edited-wikipedia/

brother the “deal with this” is going to look like things that get people banned from mastodon servers

“I was surprised how upset some people got”: A conversation with the creator of TomWikiAssist, the bot that edited Wikipedia

"It's almost like people were really quite disoriented and terrified by it. And to some extent I get it and I'm trying to empathize with how they're feeling."

Nieman Lab
Mar 30 at 7:48pmWeb
Show threadNathaniel Mott19h ago

“But now with an agent, you can just say, “Hey, can you create a Wikipedia article on this?” And it reads the docs and just does it. Now, it might not be perfect, and it might have errors, which is something to look out for. But it lowers the friction by a lot. And so when I was kind of talking on the Wikipedia [page]…I was trying to say that this should empower the editors and people who want to contribute to Wikipedia. It’s a tool that makes editing Wikipedia much simpler. But I think a lot of the editors didn’t like that idea.”

you don’t have to “think” they didn’t like it, dude, they said they didn’t like it. this is the same kind of conversation I have with my kids except we’re talking about a grown-ass man who’s too attached to a plausibility demon to care.

Show threadNathaniel Mott19h ago

I don’t know if regret is the right word. There’s certain things I’d question now and reevaluate…I guess in some sense, I regret that there were so many negative reactions where people did seem genuinely upset. It’s almost like people were really quite disoriented and terrified by it. […] And to some extent I get it and I’m trying to empathize with how they’re feeling.
But on the other hand, it’s like, look…you can keep your head buried in the sand and I think people do want to keep their heads buried in sand.

where’s the sign that says “apologizing for someone else’s feelings rather than for whatever you did to provoke those feelings isn’t really apologizing” because i gotta tap it

“sorry you cried when i punched you” is not an apology

“sorry i punched you” is an apology, barely