TL;DR AI should only be used for things that don’t matter very much. For instance, I used it to generate the little image in this post, but every word written came from me.

D has hit on something here, and I want to expand on it. Or…at least give a different perspective on it I haven’t heard anywhere else.

Sure, we can give agents only the access they need (role based, least privilege, etc.) or lock down user created agents if we don’t like them. But still this agentic stuff doesn’t sit well with me. Especially now that Anthropic and OpenAI have cyber security focused models. They’ll only give access to a small number of “defenders” at first. But someone will come up with an open source version and then…

His post starts off with the questioning why we say “please” and “thank you” to chat bots. My question is, do we actually buy it when a chat bot responds with a polite tone? Or, I guess…do you believe it? Because I sure don’t.

Let’s say, hypothetically, you operate a business on a set of core values. These values drive your culture and dictate the way your employees interact with you customers. You’d probably include things like: empathy, compassion, respect, integrity, accountability, commitment to honesty/truth, etc.

It’s tough to find people who can consistently meet these standards 100% of the time, but it’s not too hard to find people who agree these things are important and are to be pursued.

But what about AI? It knows the dictionary definition of all those things. Well, it doesn’t actually “know” the definitions inherently the way we do, but it can look them up quickly. It can even find examples of writing (on Reddit?) that conveys these qualities.

But it possesses NONE of these qualities inherently. And because it has no soul it cannot develop these qualities. It can only fake them.

Now…let’s say I’m exploring a job with this organization and they bring up the importance of these core values in my first interview. What if I respond with, “I don’t actually possess any of the foundational qualities you’re looking for. But I’m awesome at faking them.”

Think I’m getting an offer?