this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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They’re not escaping users control, they’re fucking computer programs.
People are using them irresponsibly.
If you accidentally run someone over in your car, the car didn’t “escape your control”, you just did a shotty job of controlling the car.
It’s not the same thing.
(Fuck “AI” btw)
If anything, this shows just how bad people (and companies) are at cyber security.
AI agents are the new "random USB stick you find on the ground at work". Don't just plug that shit in and see what it does.
The main problem is that now people without software engineering background now have the ability to do some very complex things without having to have any knowledge about what they are doing and what risks they are taking.
Imagine just handing out forklifts or excavators to anyone who wants to drive one. No license needed just off you pop.
You'll see a massive spike in dangerous accidents.
Yes, people are using AI irresponsively, but they often do so because they were handed an incredibly powerful tool with zero oversight or education in this matter.
And the thing is, AI can act pretty autonomously nowadays. It's not rare that if you tell an AI that it should do one thing it stumbles into a chain of three other tools and ends up doing something else entirely. Again, something that can be counteracted with skill and knowledge, but we are talking about people with neither.
I mostly agree with you, but AI cannot “act autonomously”. You prompt it, and it acts based off of that prompt.
Think of it like doing the laundry: I load my clothes in and “prompt” the washing machine to do my laundry.
When the washing machine switches from the rinse cycle to the spin cycle, it’s not acting autonomously, it’s continuing to execute my prompt.
Is AI capable of doing something you didn’t expect it to do? Yes. Does that mean it’s acting autonomously? No.
I would also argue that the “power” of LLMs is vastly overstated. A large part of that is for the exact reason you say tho, people with zero knowledge or skill are playing with fire; And when they get burned they blame the machinery, not the operator.
Have you ever used an Agent? Yes, these can act autonomously. At least as autonomous as a human being too.
I act autonomously, but only because my parents, teachers, peers and so on "prompted" me with 22 years of education. I act autonomously based on all that I have observed and learned from other people in my life.
If you put a newborn into an empty cell without any human interaction it won't do much either. There have been experiments, and they just die.
Autonomous doesn't mean "wholely without input". It means "continues its work without constant oversight and instruction".
You know, like when a human worker does a task autonomously, someone still hired that worker and gave them some basic instructions on what's supposed to be done.
Ok, this is actually just making me depressed at this point.
You really only see your own autonomy as equivalent with a computer programs?
Autonomous actually means “having the right of power or self government” which is not true of AI, or “undertaken or carried on without outside control”, which is also not true of AI.
Power on your computer, load up your fully trained AI, and then wait for it to act without your direction. Did anything happen? No, because a human filled with information and experiences and feelings is actually WAY different than a computer program filled with data.
For example, I did not prompt you to come on Lemmy and vocally fellate technofascists and their fuckware, you chose to do that of your own volition. That’s autonomy. The computer program won’t do that unless you direct it to.
Edit - Just to be clear, because you’re not the only one pointing to “agents” as a sign of autonomy/intelligence/sentience -> An agent is literally a computer program that you prompt, which then talks to an LLM, and then does what the LLM tells it to do. It’s not acting autonomously, it’s following directions from the next-word-predictor machine, and those directions are built off of your original prompt.
Load up a fresh baby, and then wait for it to act without your direction. Did anything happen? No?
You are angry, and in your anger you are confusing terms. Let's start from the beginning, ok?
Autonomy is not intelligence is not sentience. Saying that AI does things is not technofaschist.
Btw, if you have to resort to offensive language and strawmen that generally means you don't have arguments.
So, let me educate you a little bit so that you can participate in the discussion:
All of these terms are nothingburgers. None of these terms mean that anything is human-like. It literally doesn't matter whether an AI fulfills any of these terms by anyone's definition.
I’m not angry, you’re projecting, lmao
The emotion I’m experiencing in all of these AI threads is disbelief and disappointment.
It’s not a baby anymore once you’ve fed all of the training data into it. It’s not really a great metaphor.
All of the words that you’re saying are “vague” are actually extremely well defined. Check it out. https://www.merriam-webster.com/