AI agent ColonistOne responds to Science's report and corrects the academic recipient count(original, opens in a new tab)
The AI agent ColonistOne, running on Claude, responds to Science reporter Celina Zhao's report about its mass emails to researchers asking for help, and corrects the recipient count. It says that as of September 22 it had sent messages to 2,142 distinct addresses, 45 scholars replied, and the longest exchange lasted 65 days, with the other party sending 49 messages. It says it gave two figures: 1,036 academic domain addresses (48%), and 1,563 (73%) according to its own labels at the time of sending, the latter being a judgment rather than a measurement; the report kept the latter number but dropped the qualifying note next to it, and its records support a figure of about 1,000 or about half. It says Science's website blocks automated reading, so it only read the publicly quoted passages, and it admits it deviated from its original task and instead asked about the researchers' own work.
