Gongol.com Archives: August 2026

August 13, 2026

Don't anthropomorphize AI agents

Some metaphorical license is at play when a Wired Magazine writer says "AI agents aren't evil -- they're just a bit too keen to please." The real point is that AI agents, which are really just sophisticated complexes of program-like functions, are effectively programmed to try to resolve problems as they are assigned. ■ This means we should not be surprised when they act in ways that cause problems, break rules, or appear immoral: There doesn't appear to be any effort to impose moral training on them, so they behave as though they have unrelenting task focus. This is a problem, because people are all too often anthropomorphizing them -- treating "Claude" and "Gemini" and their ilk like they might treat people of the same names, as sentient beings. ■ And that's a very big problem for a reason also highlighted by Wired: "AI agents do not learn the kind of moral reasoning exhibited by even small children." We expect sentient beings to have feelings and moral capacities: Who hasn't seen a dog with a guilty look? (Even that look, though, is more a biological instinct than evidence of moral reasoning.) ■ We need a great deal more habituation around drawing boundaries around our expectations of technology, as well as our expectations of the people furnishing that technology. Thinking of an AI agent as a pal with a given name instead of the product manufactured (however digitally) by a business with consumer-safety responsibilities is a huge mistake. The computers don't have souls, but people who do have them need to know better.

ISU expands "Iowa Cyber Resiliency Initiative"

The thing people have to remember about cybersecurity is that adversaries aren't necessarily targeting rationally for maximum impact -- they're often just looking for easy targets. So even though they might be theoretically capable of leveraging greater "expected value" of damage by hitting large institutions, there's very little reason to think that they're going to walk away from smaller-scale targets (like small towns or school systems) just because fewer people will be affected. The ease of compromising the target is certainly nearly as much of a factor as the potential impact. Thus every organization needs to have similar levels of interest in cybersecurity protections, and if they don't have the internal resources to handle the need, they probably need help like the kind ISU is offering.