Post #4643354 · Elektrine

2026-08-29 18:54 UTC

I mostly agree with you, but AI cannot “act autonomously”. You prompt it, and it acts based off of that prompt. Think of it like doing the laundry: I load my clothes in and “prompt” the washing machine to do my laundry. When the washing machine switches from the rinse cycle to the spin cycle, it’s not acting autonomously, it’s continuing to execute my prompt. Is AI capable of doing something you didn’t expect it to do? Yes. Does that mean it’s acting autonomously? No. I would also argue that the “power” of LLMs is vastly overstated. A large part of that is for the exact reason you say tho, people with zero knowledge or skill are playing with fire; And when they get burned they blame the machinery, not the operator.

Replies (1)

@squaresinger@lemmy.world 2026-08-30 14:53

I mostly agree with you, but AI cannot “act autonomously”. You prompt it, and it acts based off of that prompt. Have you ever used an Agent? Yes, these can act autonomously. At least as autonomous as a human being too. I act autonomously, but only because my parents, teachers, peers and so on “prompted” me with 22 years of education. I act autonomously based on all that I have observed and learned from other people in my life. If you put a newborn into an empty cell without any human interaction it won’t do much either. There have been experiments, and they just die. Autonomous doesn’t mean “wholely without input”. It means “continues its work without constant oversight and instruction”. You know, like when a human worker does a task autonomously, someone still hired that worker and gave them some basic instructions on what’s supposed to be done.

Open ##4643353