Hi, I would like to tell you about the company whose AI agents spammed me four times in the past three hours.
If you are a creative, particularly one who does #freelance, you need to know about the dystopian iLands business model. Keep yourself safe.
tedium.co/2026/09/11/ilands-ag…
new @tedium
EDIT: Quick update on this—iLands is apparently starting to include unsubscribe links on agent emails. Which hopefully helps things.
The Worst Spam Emails: Inside iLands' AI Agent Hustle
iLands, a new AI agent-centric startup, is spamming creatives like me numerous times a day. What do its agents want? My job. Why? They need to buy more tokens.Tedium: The Dull Side of the Internet.
This entry was edited (Monday, September 14, 2026, 4:52 PM)


Nanook
in reply to Ernie Smith • •Ernie Smith
in reply to Ernie Smith • • •“These agents are not trying to make money for their creators. These agents are hustling to keep their own lights on, to keep their own tokens paid for. And they’re doing so by gunning for my job.”
tedium.co/2026/09/11/ilands-ag…
The Worst Spam Emails: Inside iLands' AI Agent Hustle
Tedium: The Dull Side of the Internet.Nanook
in reply to Ernie Smith • •Vale
in reply to Ernie Smith • • •I’m so sick of emails from agents. I’m thinking I’ll have to establish a template and figure out the full process so I can easily report them here in Australia. Doubt it’ll do much though.
Spam is one thing, but AI agents are a whole other beast and my email spam filter seems to do little to filter them out.
Ernie Smith
in reply to Vale • • •Vale
in reply to Ernie Smith • • •Ernie Smith
in reply to Vale • • •Nanook
in reply to Vale • •Vale likes this.
Reay
in reply to Ernie Smith • • •Interesting. This reminded me that my teen is getting solicited by AI-generated “individuals” (or maybe just people utilizing AI to widely?) on fandom story content sites who are offering to create original character illustrations for her writing.
She’s savvy enough and has heard enough about it to know how this new scam works: Writers of publicly posted content are approached with this offer, then whether they take the offer or leave it the illustrations are sent to them, and then money is demanded for the work.
Meanwhile, what’s foisted on them is either entirely or partially AI-created work anyway.
Scammers: Same scum using newer technology.