Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I would hope that journalists would understand AI and software better than this. I am disappointed.

I recently read this story about a rogue AI Agent:

A rogue AI agent recently triggered a major security alert at Meta Platforms, by taking action without approval that led to the exposure of sensitive company and user data to Meta employees who didn’t have authorization to access the data.

Ooooooo, rogue AI Agents. Here comes the Terminator and the like. Just like the movies. Hide under the bed; flee to the mountains and hide in caves.

Good grief! Someone wrote software, didn’t test it adequately, and things happened that the programmer didn’t intend.

Have you ever written a C program that allocated memory in a recursive function and … uh oh. I didn’t intend to gobble all the memory and lock the supercomputer and have to call the technician to cycle the power to the entire building and call the fire department and police department and … and that didn’t involve any AI.

Come on folks! AI Rogue Agent? It is software someone wrote. “The computer is down.”

Did the AI Rogue Agent delete files? Surely you have backups of the files to recover, right? Oh, you didn’t? Hmm. Well, another lesson. Surely you weren’t connected to the Internet so that everyone’s personal information was pumped out there for all to see? Oh, you were? Hmm. Well, another lesson.

We don’t need AI to do stupid things and suffer the consequences. Let’s do better.