AI didn't delete your database, you did • Hacker News Board

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#21

Post by ericskiff » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

What's interesting is that in this article, the author describes making an understandable mistake (accidentally deleting Trunk aka main from source) and how their team was able to easily recover from that due to the nature of SVN.

The actual "AI deleted my database" story is really more of a "Railways' database 'backup' strategy is insane and opaque and Railway promoting AI infrastructure orchestration without guardrails is dangerous."

If removing Trunk had irrevocably deleted it from a single centralized server and also deleted any backups of it, there would have been an "SVN and the CLI destroyed our company" article back then.

As a Railway user, I appreciated that information and have changed my strategy when using them.

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#22

Post by tantalor » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #5

wiring up an RNG to your CLI has fairly obvious risks, the root of the problem is ~everyone's treating GenAI as if it's AGI - the rest is popcorn fodder.

New rule: Roll a 1 on a D20 -> you accidentally delete your own database

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#23

Post by sofixa » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

The issue isn't that there is a delete endpoint (realistically, there always will be a way for a rogue actor to delete data or code by overwriting it, or running a Terraform destroy, or whatever).

The core issue is that the LLM had access to perform that action. Because it's by definition non deterministic, and you never know what it can decide to do, you need to have strict guardrails to ensure they can never do something it shouldn't. At the very least, strict access controls, ideally something more detailed that can evaluate access requests, provide just in time properly scoped access credentials, and potentially human escalation.

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#24

Post by recursive » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

wolttam wrote: post #14

josefritzishere wrote: post #2

Using AI is a mistake. It might delete your database.

Using a saw is a mistake, you might cut off one of your own limbs.

Using a saw entails a risk of injury. Using one is a mistake if you don't intend to cut something.

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#25

Post by pc86 » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

yabones wrote: post #16

"move fast and break things" only sounds good when it's not breaking things in a serious and unfixable way. Maybe we shouldn't take hype mantras as instructive means to an end.

There really shouldn't be any "serious and unfixable way" to break things, especially in a modern company that uses technology in any meaningful way. The fact it's even possible to get into an unrecoverable state is the primary issue.

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#26

Post by docheinestages » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

AI is just another tool. We humans are still responsible for how we choose to use the tool, which includes giving it access to perform sensitive actions like manipulating production data. I think this should be common sense by now, but I guess we get carried away and anthropomorphize AI too much.

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#27

Post by giancarlostoro » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

edot wrote: post #20

This is why you don’t hire interns! They can delete things and cause havoc! The same people who would blame AI for their failing to properly configure permissions would also blame interns for deleting production whatever. Blame should go up, praise should go down. People always invert these.

Yeah, I don't know why anyone would open up a codebase with any prod credentials with an LLM or give prod credentials to an intern / junior developer. I always intentionally had a "PROD" only checkout of my projects so I knew if I was going to try and run it in a PROD mode, that I was going out of my way, there even used to be a VS extension that would change the color of VS completely based on your SLN file path, so I could easily remember which color for VS was for production vs development. I'd have basically a copy that would always be on the latest of the master branch for ease of confirmation.

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#28

Post by Avicebron » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

newsoftheday wrote: post #13

The article is dumb, "why do you have an API endpoint that deletes your entire production database?" irrelevant, the AI did what it did, period.

Uh?

If someone left a loaded gun in a room and then let a toddler run around in it, we would be questioning why the guy 1) left the gun in the room 2) left the toddler in the room unsupervised. We wouldn't be saying, well no one should have toddlers in rooms.

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#29

Post by rvz » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

   When AI makes no mistakes: "My work is 100% done with AI".

   When AI makes a mistake and deletes your database: "That was human a error, the AI did not do it!"

In both cases YOU are responsible for the mistakes and output that the AI is generating, just like when using autopilot on a Tesla vehicle, YOU are responsible for operating the vehicle on autopilot when driving and using assisted driving.

Re: AI didn't delete your database, you did

#30

Post by oersted » Tue, May 05, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

Some details from the original post for context:

They had a Railway token in an unrelated file (unclear if it was a local secret) for managing custom domains. It turns out that token has full admin access to Railway.

The AI deleted a single relevant volume by id. The author is rather vague about what exactly it asked it to do, he just says there was a “credentials mismatch” and Claude took the initiative to fix it by deleting the volume. But it’s likely that they are somewhat downplaying their culpability by being vague.

It turns out too that Railway stores backups in the same volume.

I think that OP is exaggerating with their references to “a public API that deletes your database”.

I’d say most of the blame lies with Railway here, regardless of AI, this could have happened easily due to human error or malicious intent too.

I really don’t get the value of all these VC funded high-abstraction cloud services like Railway, Vercel, Supabase… It’s markup on top of markup. Just get a single physical server in Hetzer and it will all be so much cheaper, with a similar level of complexity and danger, and less dependent on infra built with reckless growth-at-all-costs mentality.