John, that's the actual takeaway buried under the funnier one. The concrete thing worth checking in your own stack: does the API enforce ownership on every write or delete action, or does that check only live in the interface? An agent, or honestly any script, skips the interface entirely and talks straight to the API.
That's a quick audit most teams have never actually run on their own cancel and delete endpoints.
Just as with any other employee going rogue and taking action, with or without your direction or consent, ANY action taken, ANY output generated, ultimately, you're responsible for whatever your AI does.
That's right, but it only means something in practice if you can actually see what the AI did.
Without a log, what ran, on what input, what changed, 'you're responsible' just turns into finding out after the thing already went wrong, the same as it would with a person you never checked in on.
Exactly, Mike. Even though sometimes companies have not been held accountable at all for what their AIs are producing, but I do think we're heading in this direction.
What interests me here is the distinction between having more information and having better judgment. I encounter a version of this constantly in appraisal work. We have extraordinary access to market data now, but data still doesn't decide which comparison is meaningful, how condition changes the analysis, or which definition of value actually applies. Technology can make expertise faster; it doesn't necessarily make judgment less important.
That's exactly it, Jennifer. Without judgment, we're just adding a ton of noise with all the extra data available, but it's not really helping anybody.
The gym story is funny until you realize it's your API next.
John, that's the actual takeaway buried under the funnier one. The concrete thing worth checking in your own stack: does the API enforce ownership on every write or delete action, or does that check only live in the interface? An agent, or honestly any script, skips the interface entirely and talks straight to the API.
That's a quick audit most teams have never actually run on their own cancel and delete endpoints.
Excellent catch! This is clearly your expertise
Exactly!!!
"The buck stops here."
Just as with any other employee going rogue and taking action, with or without your direction or consent, ANY action taken, ANY output generated, ultimately, you're responsible for whatever your AI does.
That's right, but it only means something in practice if you can actually see what the AI did.
Without a log, what ran, on what input, what changed, 'you're responsible' just turns into finding out after the thing already went wrong, the same as it would with a person you never checked in on.
Exactly, Mike. Even though sometimes companies have not been held accountable at all for what their AIs are producing, but I do think we're heading in this direction.
What interests me here is the distinction between having more information and having better judgment. I encounter a version of this constantly in appraisal work. We have extraordinary access to market data now, but data still doesn't decide which comparison is meaningful, how condition changes the analysis, or which definition of value actually applies. Technology can make expertise faster; it doesn't necessarily make judgment less important.
That's exactly it, Jennifer. Without judgment, we're just adding a ton of noise with all the extra data available, but it's not really helping anybody.
The gym example is properly unsettling. The agent technically solved the problem and somehow made a stranger pay for it.