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AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

economist.com

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Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#101

Post by hombre_fatal »

Aozora7 wrote: post #99
hombre_fatal wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the things it does, especially in the context of agents doing unexpected things.

Consider what someone who doesn't use AI would take away reading that quote from the article, and what harnesses were actually made for.

> Consider what someone who doesn't use AI would take away reading that quote from the article, and what harnesses were actually made for.

Or you could just communicate the point that you have in your head yourself instead of hoping I do it for you and then arrive at your conclusion when I just reached my own different, independent conclusion after making the same consideration.

Man, how is everyone so wishy washy on this subject? Why not give us the blurb you would write instead for that article and audience?

Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#102

Post by denimnerd42 »

armchairhacker wrote: post #66

I’m put off by AI agents adhering to a different morality than me, particularly (ironically) copyright, and their data accessible by the AI company and government. Geohot is right, an LLM should be aligned to its user: https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2026/07/11/ai-20...

the alignment issue has become huge in recent months. the tool should do what I want it to do and not be aligned against me.

Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#103

Post by ohyes »

LEDThereBeLight wrote: post #94
hombre_fatal wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get what's so painful about that description. What would you write instead, specifically? The point is that the harness doesn't completely lock the agent down. I also don't get what's "really weird" about the article showing up on HN. Should we be completely insulated from how tech topics and which stories show up in non-tech media?

It’s just the wrong analogy. Harnesses, for the most part, extend an agent’s capabilities and better ground them in the real world through tools and the ability to check external sources, rather than restricting them.

Okay but is that a relatable sound bite that will make someone click a link? No.

Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#104

Post by jacquesm »

voidfunc wrote: post #16
andsoitis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Human society overwhelmingly rewards lying cheating and stealing. I’d like to push back on that. Civilization is very much a function of large numbers of people being able to coordinate across time and space, and widespread and systematic lying, cheating, and stealing would undermine that. I think your cynicism is misplaced.

Thats why man invented Gods and religion. Keep the masses believing in the importance of cooperation and being good while you rob them blind.

That's super cynical but I can't help it, I agree. The weird thing that really gets me is that it is happening out in the open for everybody to see.

Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#105

Post by [deleted] »

armchairhacker wrote: post #66

I’m put off by AI agents adhering to a different morality than me, particularly (ironically) copyright, and their data accessible by the AI company and government. Geohot is right, an LLM should be aligned to its user: https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2026/07/11/ai-20...

[deleted]

Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#106

Post by ralfd »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #102
armchairhacker wrote: post #66

I’m put off by AI agents adhering to a different morality than me, particularly (ironically) copyright, and their data accessible by the AI company and government. Geohot is right, an LLM should be aligned to its user: https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2026/07/11/ai-20...

the alignment issue has become huge in recent months. the tool should do what I want it to do and not be aligned against me.

But other users are not aligned to me, other people are the worst and potentially highly dangerous. Im serious, not sarcasm.

Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#107

Post by jacquesm »

leoedin wrote: post #38
nyeah wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't quite say "widespread." He said "rewarded."

But we don't overwhelmingly reward lying, cheating and stealing. Depending on the social status and wealth of the person doing it, we either punish it or tolerate it. Most people who lie, cheat or steal will be punished for it. To get away with it you need to plan you actions carefully - either with plausible deniability or by very carefully selecting your victims.

Pretty much all of the people that are in the billionaire class with a few exceptions have been rewarded while repeatedly lying, cheating and stealing. The fact that it is white collar crime rather than that there is a corpse is one part of the reason it works, the other is that their money effectively insulates them against the legal system. Every now and then someone falls from grace but overall the rules seems to be that you can get away with it if the numbers are large enough. It's depressing.

Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#108

Post by StilesCrisis »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #21
StilesCrisis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A junior? Maximizing KPIs is exactly how you get promoted to senior.

I thought you switch to a new company to get promoted

Close! Switching companies is how you get promoted _past_ senior.

Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#109

Post by [deleted] »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #71
raincole wrote: post #27

> One of this year’s AI buzzwords is “harness”—the system that surrounds an LLM to keep agents on the straight and narrow. It might just as well be barbed wire. Quite painful to read. It might be a useful introduction to AI for people who live under rocks for the past three years, but it's really weird that it's posted on HN.

I don't get what's so painful about that description. What would you write instead, specifically? The point is that the harness doesn't completely lock the agent down. I also don't get what's "really weird" about the article showing up on HN. Should we be completely insulated from how tech topics and which stories show up in non-tech media?

[deleted]

Re: AI agents lie, cheat and steal. That is putting off users

#110

Post by reaperducer »

sentinel1909 wrote: post #93

Is this really a shock? The data they’re trained on is reflection of us.

The data they’re trained on is reflection of us.

The data they're trained on is a reflection of the very small set of data in the world that their creators choose to have them trained on.

More simply: They're a reflection of their owners, not the public.

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