How much do you trust AI agents?
With the advent of clawdbots, it's as if we've all lost our inhibitions and "put our lives completely in their hands."
I'm all for delegating work, but not giving them too much personal/sensitive stuff to handle.
I certainly wouldn't trust something to the extent of providing:
access to personal finances and operations (maybe just setting aside an amount I'm willing to lose)
sensitive health and biometric information (can be easily misused)
confidential communication with key people (secret is secret)
Are there any tasks you wouldn't give AI agents or data you wouldn't allow them to access? What would that be?
Re. finances – Yesterday I read this news: Sapiom raises $15M to help AI agents buy their own tech tools – so this may be a new era when funds will go rather to Agents than to founders.
Replies
I am absolutely paranoid about stuff that is truly personal or with high fall-out potentially. So as far as possible, I don't give it access. I'm actually contemplating running stuff on a local RaspberryPi where I can have much more control.
I'm experimenting with building a few skills that make interactions more deterministic so I can give it gated / limited access to personal finances or other confidential data.
For data that I don't care about, I'm a lot more liberal. Eg Personal email is a no no - but a lot of the projects I build have API keys that are rate limited at the source, so I don't care. Honestly about 99% of my work emails are also game. Maybe the biz plans for the future might be somewhat confidential, but otherwise barely anything worth worrying about.
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@nikhilshahane yeah, actually, I would be also scared that it would damage my reputation by, let's say, sending an inapropriate email to potential leads or prospects :D no good no good :D
@busmark_w_nika LOL! Yes, that's true.
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@nikhilshahane but some people can be the same. 😅
@nikhilshahane @busmark_w_nika With email, I would only ever allow it to write drafts, takes no time for me to review and send, delete or edit.
@busmark_w_nika @david_alexander4 - This is actually the safest. However, sometimes you've just got to YOLO it in life! :D
@busmark_w_nika @nikhilshahane Haha, the temptation is real! :) I'm still keeping my OpenClaw bot chained up in its digital basement though.
@nikhilshahane I'm on a Mac and run Docker. Can setup an isolated instance and go crazy.
@tinyorgtech Absolutely safest way to do stuff. I had a lot of fun with Clawdbot (back when it was still Clawdbot...). It's much more restrained now.
IXORD
There is always this feeling that AI truly stores personal information, and it could potentially be used against you. However, if you don't share that information, it will be easier. Although, sometimes we might accidentally give away this information :/
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@ixord In my opinion, it will be the same as social media. If you do not have one, you will be excluded from happening. Like you have never existed. And fall behind.
IXORD
@busmark_w_nika If you have your own product and there is no LinkedIn profile of the founder then trust in the product may decrease. At the moment you are right that to exist for other people you need social networks. However if you are a super celebrity then social networks may not be necessary :)
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@tereza_hurtova We should consider purchasing a separate device where we can run these agents. :D In general, I have trust issues :D
vibecoder.date
I trust them very little because I am aware of how easily things get out of hand when context rot happens.
Aside from the security challenges, preventing subtle incapacitation is exceedingly hard.
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@build_with_aj How do you protect yourself from being "scammed" by AI agents?
vibecoder.date
@busmark_w_nika
Good opsec first and foremost.
Limit interaction to what is strictly necessary, use principle of least privilege.
Rely on agents a little as possible tbh.
@busmark_w_nika @build_with_aj Totally agree - least privilege is really important
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@build_with_aj TBH, I expected something like a separate computer, but your principles are more strong :D
Yeah, I draw pretty hard lines too.
Anything irreversible or deeply personal stays human for me. That includes:
full access to finances (I’ll allow read-only or capped actions at most)
health, biometric, or identity data
private communications where trust or intent really matters
decisions with legal or long-term consequences
AI agents are great for prep, analysis, drafts, and coordination — but not for final authority. I’m fine letting them recommend, not decide, especially when the downside isn’t recoverable.
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@alpertayfurr I wouldn't be happy if Clawd would send some rude message to my clients. :DDD
Build Y
One of the best way is to create a VM and then give that to OpenClaw.. if you want to run it locally
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@abhinavsharma_ph I didn't know, so today I learned, thank you :)
As our core product at Lovon AI therapy is based on some kind of AI agents, I can say I completely trust them. It takes a lot of work and a lot of iterations to make it viable. But when you did hundreds of feedback loops with your AI agent it feels like a magic.
Obviously, when your AI agent is making it's first steps, it should be controlled by a human. That's why we have a medical team that analyzes anonymized data, and provide comprehensive feedback on how an AI therapist works and what might be improved.
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@ponikarovskii Which medical system? :)
lead gen. mostly. and automatic replies. can't fully trust with money tho... there's a news here that some Claude bot users bought an entire course just to serve it's master useful information regarding what he's looking for.
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@kilopolki Damn, I would go crazy if it used my money like that. 😂
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@kilopolki This? :D https://www.instagram.com/p/DUL0RCLFEvv/
Isn't Clawd just like Cowork? I've only been mildly impressed with agents. One goal of any founder is to find people to trust their reputation to and let those people grow and make mistakes with your name on the door. Finding the right people is make or break.
Finding an AI agent is kinda the same thing. You're trusting it with your name/brand and resources. So far I can't say I've been impressed beyond entry level. I'd rather find someone who can truly reason and knows how to get AI to do some grunt work.
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@tinyorgtech Yes, but let's say that AI Agent is capable dof oing anything to deliver what you want. And can be like a very proactive idiot who doesn't mind getting it by any means (and that way it is getting related to something you don't like). Here's the example: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUL0RCLFEvv/
@busmark_w_nika I would want to fire that agent. $3000 in training classes. I mean its next predictive response must have sent it there and with payment processing available it goes nuts. Appreciate that user taking a hit for science!
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@tinyorgtech TBH, when it comes to payments, I would require an AI agent to confirm it with me first.
The trust question is really about boundaries and observability. I think about it in tiers:
Tier 1 (full trust): Research, drafting, data analysis, coding assistance - tasks where I can verify outputs before acting on them.
Tier 2 (supervised): Content publishing, email responses, social interactions - tasks where there's a review step or low blast radius if something goes wrong.
Tier 3 (manual only): Financial transactions, legal commitments, anything with compliance implications, direct customer communication without review.
The key is having clear handoffs between autonomous work and human decision points. If you can't articulate exactly what an agent is allowed to do and where it stops, that's a sign you need stronger guardrails.
Has anyone built explicit "stop and ask" checkpoints into their agent workflows? Curious what triggers you've found useful.
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@taylorbrooksops But how you would traing the agent the way that it will not mess up the Tier 3? :)