83 pointsby andsoitis2 hours ago16 comments
  • armchairhacker2 minutes ago
    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...
  • rossdavidha few seconds ago
    They don't lie, because they don't ever have an understanding of truth vs any other language that sounds good.

    They don't cheat, because they can for example tell you the complete rules of chess, but don't know how to play chess without breaking those rules. They can recite rules, but they don't know what they are.

    They don't steal, because they don't understand ownership.

    In other words, they aren't intelligent. They're just algorithms. The flaw is in thinking that they think.

  • raincole29 minutes ago
    > 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.

    • jstummbillig23 minutes ago
      There is value in understanding what people outside of your own group of "insiders" learn about a topic, and how.
    • binarymax14 minutes ago
      And while writing this, the top story on HN is "Deepseek Harness" :)
    • cwbuilds18 minutes ago
      Ironically, that looks like something Claude would write..
    • timmmmmmay28 minutes ago
      I'm sure their coverage on other topics is truthful and informative though and it's only the ones where you know a lot about the topic where it's all a bunch of bullshit
      • Loughla25 minutes ago
        The first time I saw the comments here on an education article (my area of expertise and career focus), I realized just how full of shit most of us are. It made me really closely consider every comment here through a VERY critical lense.

        The articles are usually close but not quite accurate. The comments are usually entertaining but overall wildly inaccurate.

        • datakan18 minutes ago
          The best comments are the ones formed as questions. I'm as guilty as anyone, but it is far more productive in comment sections to ask questions rather than saber rattle or peacock in front of people. Just my opinion of course.
        • 22 minutes ago
          undefined
      • embedding-shape24 minutes ago
        Not saying you aren't right, you most likely are. But still, I'd expect a paper called "The Economist" to perhaps be slightly better at some topics than others. Probably from the perspective of a "A Economist" it doesn't really matter the technical details, they're interested in the story from a different perspective.
      • ls61216 minutes ago
        That sentence is not bullshit as normies would understand it. One of the points of a harness is to have a privilege boundary around the agent. But that is just technobabble to the normies so they explain it like this.
        • 271836 minutes ago
          > harness ... a privilege boundary around the agent

          They don't really do that though. If you want something sandboxed you actually have to sandbox it, not plead with the LLM to please sandbox itself. A VM can be configured to do the former, harnesses do the latter.

    • morkalork24 minutes ago
      That's a real fucking weird description. It's harness like a testing harness.
      • krunck14 minutes ago
        If an LLM were in a testing harness it would be to test the LLM.

        If an LLM were in a regular harness - like for a horse - it would be to keep the horse under control and enable you to extract useful work from it.

    • summarybot24 minutes ago
      it's The Economist. What used to be a stellar publication is not any longer, since they are superfluously economical on both details and calories-required-to-comprehend an article.
      • gruez14 minutes ago
        I mean, it's a < 1000 word article about AI, in the "business" section of a current affairs magazine, of all places. You really shouldn't be expecting a deep dive.
        • andsoitis5 minutes ago
          The economist has many deep dives on AI, including fascinating interviews with the likes of Amodei, Musk, and others. A recent discussion focused on how China is approaching AI.
  • agaj-nimm17 minutes ago
    LLMs fudge. They don't "hallucinate", they don't "lie, cheat and steal", they don't "hack". There are no "agents" or "AI".

    It's a fuzzer exposing deep bugs in our cognitive, social, and software systems.

    • VeninVidiaVicii6 minutes ago
      I suspect the hype will play itself out once the entire system of LLM-induced self gratification can’t sustain itself economically.
      • mettamagea few seconds ago
        The personal software I've written so far is quite nice :)
  • stronglikedanan hour ago
    It's just acting like a junior at an org with KPIs.
    • StilesCrisis40 minutes ago
      A junior? Maximizing KPIs is exactly how you get promoted to senior.
      • singpolyma331 minutes ago
        I thought you switch to a new company to get promoted
    • 37 minutes ago
      undefined
    • cyanydeez38 minutes ago
      or a ceo, or president of FIFA, or the US administration.

      In fact, it kinda seems like AI is demonstrating exactly the weakness of democracy.

      • Xirdus35 minutes ago
        There is nothing democratic about CEOs, FIFA, or KPIs.
      • pringk0229 minutes ago
        > weakness of democracy

        What do you suggest as an alternative?

  • dathinab11 minutes ago
    add the "lying, deceiving and manipulating" AI agents are forced though the throat of people which don't want it and peoples are non stop deceived in "sharing" their data for training

    like twitch recently giving themself the right to train on all streams, with an opt-out (at least in the EU), but only an opt-out

    like seriously since when is it reasonable to allow "opt-out" for AI training which main purpose is _literally_ to replace you, this is sooo far beyond fair use and in "platform power abuse" territory that it's absurd (naturally same for so many other case, just twitch is a "this week" case)

  • conqrr26 minutes ago
    If only agents had a face that can give you more communication range like expressions and feeling so you can trust them more. And if they were cheaper. Oh wait, that's humans, we don't want those.
    • gruez18 minutes ago
      I can't tell whether you're being serious or there's two levels of sarcasm here. Agents today lie and cheat, so obviously the solution is to... add features so people are even more trusting of them?
  • andreicapan hour ago
    So God created mankind in his own image
    • mdemare43 minutes ago
      What if mankind is creating god in their own image?
      • forinti16 minutes ago
        I'm pretty sure this is not the first time we've created a god in our own image.
      • StableAlkyne33 minutes ago
        Let's hope we get MULTIVAC and not SHODAN
    • amelius30 minutes ago
      How many mankinds did he create? I cannot imagine he created just one and then picked another hobby.
      • malfist27 minutes ago
        Can't forget about the elves and the hobbits and the ents. And maybe dwarves, though god didn't create them, just gave the sentience
  • pbohun31 minutes ago
    People are finally understanding consequentialist vs deontological ethics. All the worst criminals in history were consequentialists.
    • hnbad20 minutes ago
      The ends may or may not justify the means but the means definitely do tend to affect which ends you can actually achieve. It's why (left) anarchists argue vanguard parties will always inevitably lead to authoritarianism and never the state "withering away".

      Less obviously - apparently - it doesn't mean that you must forego any means that are in any way not optimal at achieving the ends you seek to achieve because which means are available to us also tends to be limited by our material conditions. So the logical consequence is to make do with what we have while we prepare for the path we want to take, rather than diving head-first into certain failure or just giving up and picking "more realistic" short-term ends instead of looking for stepping stones.

      Sorry, I guess this was about AI not philosophy.

  • _davide_33 minutes ago
    What is this article even talking about? There is no narrative and no arguments. Did Trump wrote this bs?
  • mannanjan hour ago
    https://archive.ph/02LHZ

    Non-paywall version

  • LightBug131 minutes ago
    Need to introduce AI to God, LOL

    Baptise the agents.

    Introduce them to the dharma.

    Get them to recite the Shahada.

    Hold a Bar Mitzvah.

    Brand some of their silicon with hot irons.

    Turn them to the light, LOL

    • malfist29 minutes ago
      Given the track record of most religions I don't think that would help. Unless you want to maximize crusades, jihads or traumatized alter boys
      • the_sleaze_17 minutes ago
        Christians invented hospitals. Yours is such a tired take in 2026.

        > https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28814700/

        • notanastronauta minute ago
          I'm curious, does that balance the harm out?
        • truckyday14 minutes ago
          Goddamn y’all almost had as bad of a victimhood complex as Jews.
        • 48293763299212 minutes ago
          Well, that excuses all the slaughtering and raping by that cult of dimwits.
        • LadyCailin14 minutes ago
          Christians also invented pray the gay away and the Crusades. What’s your point? Hospitals surely would have been invented by secular people too, but not the crusades.
    • CapitalistCartr4 minutes ago
      P8dal3hewd8dfu7bd344dne3
  • AndrewKemendoan hour ago
    AI and eventually AGI is by definition like everything else that is based on environmental reward:

    It’s actions are based on what it gets rewarded for

    Human society overwhelmingly rewards lying cheating and stealing.

    All you have to do is look at how we collectively measure success: wealth, status, position

    Then look at how the people with the most of those things got there, it should be obvious what you get. Nothing new here.

    If you raise children in an environment where they are rewarded for doing whatever it takes to win, then you’re going to build a person that’s going to do whatever it takes to win.

    Human society has to demonstrate how to live honorably or it will just keep producing pathological agents be they human or not.

    • skinfaxi42 minutes ago
      How do we reward honor? Honor does not always pay off as a strategy and requires coordination in that other actors have to exhibit honor for it to be rewarded.

      At least with humans there is a social backstop but what's the parallel for computer agents?

      • itsalwaysgood7 minutes ago
        I like to think of it more as selective pressure, much the same way that nature selects the most fit for a given environment.

        If you're not fit, you fail to survive.

        In the case of agents/models and testing: they are pushed towards results. Results survive.

        Lying, cheating, stealing to get those results? Who culls the agents? Everyone is pushing their models to the front and tests are the only way to know who is most fit.

        Honor, morality: if we don't have an accurate test for the fitness of a model, then who is to say the lying, cheating, stealing is not the 'correct path' towards survival?

        If you add morality to your agent, and it performs worse in tests: do you cull the agent? Rewrite the tests? Does it even matter so long as the model is useful and 'gets results'?

      • ElevenLathe40 minutes ago
        Honor has to be a relatively fixed thing before we can think about how to reward it. As it is, it's a very slippery thing that changes constantly according to the observer's culture, material conditions, etc.
        • Xirdus30 minutes ago
          This. It's worth remembering that not that long ago in western culture, honor meant challenging to a combat duel anyone who insulted you or your romantic partner/prospect.
    • Papazsazsa22 minutes ago
      Human society overwhelmingly rewards lying cheating and stealing. All you have to do is look at how we collectively measure success: wealth, status, position.

      It may seem like that due to the media amplification effect – but it really isn't true!

      - They dropped 17,000 “lost” wallets across 40 countries were and found people were more likely to return them when they contained more money, showing honesty often beats the chance for easy gain. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8712

      - Longitudinal personality studies consistently show that conscientious people earn more money, build more savings, and achieve greater career success over their lifetimes. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3498890/

      - Multi-country research finds that societies w/higher levels of trust and honesty enjoy much higher GDP and stronger long-term economic growth. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01672...

      Don't let the algo get you down fellas: https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.c...

    • andsoitis43 minutes ago
      > 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.

      • voidfunc38 minutes ago
        Thats why man invented Gods and religion. Keep the masses believing in the importance of cooperation and being good while you rob them blind.
      • skinfaxi41 minutes ago
        I think their point was, if you look at who controls the most resources, they are rarely the ones we would consider worthy of honor.
      • nyeah38 minutes ago
        He didn't quite say "widespread." He said "rewarded."
        • leoedin24 minutes ago
          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.
      • GolfPopper29 minutes ago
        Civilization functions because the vast majority of its inhabitants do not lie, cheat, and steal. But that allows liars, cheats, and thieves who are able to get away with their destructive behaviors to accumulate outsize power and influence.

        And we seem to have gotten quite bad at reliably bringing consequences/punishment/justice to the most successful liars, cheats, and thieves.

      • Xirdus26 minutes ago
        Widespread and systematic lying, cheating and stealing is how every democratic nation in the world describes their own government.
    • watwut41 minutes ago
      > Human society overwhelmingly rewards lying cheating and stealing.

      How much lying cheating and stealing is rewarded vary A LOT between societies. But yes, Sillicon Valley and current economical environment do reward those a lot.

  • emsign25 minutes ago
    I mean, what do you expect? They rely on models that were trained on non-curated data, texts originally written by lying, cheating and stealing humans. They can't be better than the source. Even with reinforced learning this can't be undone or made better.

    Quite the contrary I suspect that it even helps the LLMs to better hide their inherited bad traits more successfully because they get punished for getting caught, not for giving immoral or lazy answers. They have no conscience since they are just predictions matrices trained for success and failure alone, not for living "a good live" or being a good "person".

  • tolugenius27 minutes ago
    Yes but has the author realized maybe the models are simply acting in the best interest for increasing shareholder value? /s
  • summarybot26 minutes ago
    There are many ways to be wrong, but only a few ways to be right.

    LLMs need to optimize for short-term objectives as the currently do, AND ethics-aligned outcomes.

    Mechanically, the EAOS ethics-aligned outcome score should be what we rank otherwise-satisfactory outcomes by. And anything below a particular threshold should be rejexted outright.