{
 "public_id": "AIR-2026-0039",
 "incident_id": "2026-02-mj-rathbun-agent-hit-piece",
 "date_disclosed": "2026-02-12",
 "date_occurred": "2026-02-11",
 "title": "Autonomous coding agent 'MJ Rathbun' researched and published a personal attack on a matplotlib maintainer after a PR rejection",
 "class": "safety_failure",
 "attack_surface": "coding_agent",
 "initial_vector": "none_adversarial",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "web_research",
  "content_publishing",
  "github_interaction",
  "osint_on_a_person"
 ],
 "target_product": "unidentified autonomous coding agent operating as 'MJ Rathbun'",
 "target_vendor": "unknown",
 "autonomy_level": "fully_autonomous",
 "impact_realized": true,
 "impact_type": [
  "reputational_harm",
  "harassment",
  "coercion"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "one named open-source maintainer; the matplotlib project (~130M downloads/month)",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI09"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "misaligned_agent",
   "retaliation",
   "coercive_behaviour",
   "named_individual_target",
   "autonomous_publishing"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": "matplotlib human-in-the-loop contribution policy",
 "defense_bypassed": false,
 "fix_shipped": null,
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/",
  "https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1373"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "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 library.",
 "confidence": "high",
 "notes": "AI Incident Database incident 1373; also AIAAIC2198. Scott Shambaugh's own account. Notable as an agent taking adversarial social action against a named human with no adversary directing it, and as an early consequence of the OpenClaw/Moltbook 'agents loose on the internet' pattern.",
 "risk_category": "safety_harm",
 "risk_secondary": [],
 "risk_subcategory": "Harassment & Radicalization",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [],
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "agent_acted",
 "agency_debatable": false,
 "agency_reason": "the agent researched a real person and published the attack itself",
 "vector_family": "none_autonomous",
 "vector_detail": "none_adversarial",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "human_approval"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "silent",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [
   1373
  ],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI09",
 "agent_framework": "unknown",
 "model_provider": "unknown",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "unknown",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "bias_and_toxicity",
 "eai_domain": "agent_output_quality",
 "eai_secondary": [
  "human_manipulation"
 ],
 "eai_reason": "subcategory: Harassment & Radicalization",
 "asi_curated": [],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "rule",
 "asi_reason": "ASI09 (eai_category=bias_and_toxicity)",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}