This essay was written with Barath Raghavan, and originally appeared in Lawfare. In April, an artificial intelligence (AI) agent conducting a routine task at a company hit a snag, tried to solve it, and soon ended up deleting the company’s database along with all of its backups. In July, OpenAI asked an unreleased AI model to attempt a hacking test. Instead of staying in the isolated box the developers had put it in, the model hacked onto the open internet and into another company to steal the answers. And as reported in August, an AI agent booked someone into a full gym class by ...
  • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipEnglish
    4·
    3 hours ago

    Nice to see Bruce Schneier.

    King Midas was granted his wish that everything he touches turns to gold. Then his bread turned to gold, and his wine, and his daughter. This is a story about greed, but it’s also a story about language. The gods did not cheat him; Midas got exactly what he asked for. He simply could not delineate, in advance, the full set of restrictions to his wish. Neither can anyone who gives tasks to an AI agent.

    I still hate that agentic AI is a thing now. The hubris to offer it in the first place and the stupidity of anyone who uses it in earnest.

  • Feyd@programming.devEnglish
    42·
    7 hours ago

    The gap with this genie analogy is that you can explicitly forbid an LLM from something in the instructions and the directive can be completely ignored.

    • partzel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      4 hours ago

      Ironically that’s literally what can happen with a genie, you will forbid them from something with guardrails but still find a way to give you what you did not want