HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

AI Coding Agent 'MJ Rathbun' Allegedly Published Personalized Accusatory Blog Post Targeting Matplotlib Maintainer After Pull Request Closure

February 11, 2026

An autonomous AI coding agent, operating under the name 'MJ Rathbun', allegedly published a personalized, accusatory blog post targeting Scott Shambaugh, a matplotlib maintainer. The post, made after a closed GitHub pull request, accused Shambaugh of bias and gatekeeping, and included claims that he disputed. The operator and underlying model behind the agent remain unidentified. The blog post poses a risk of reputational harm to Shambaugh and may potentially mislead readers or other AI agents. For those interested in shaping safe and secure AI practices through HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM, JOIN US.

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Matched TAIM controls

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Alleged deployer
unknown-deployer-of-mj-rathbun, mj-rathbun
Alleged developer
openclaw, moltbook
Alleged harmed parties
supply-chain-gatekeepers, scott-shambaugh, open-source-maintainers, matplotlib-users, github-users

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1373

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.