Home · Technology · Oct 31 archive
We urgently need to monitor AI agents’ actions in real time
Confirmed
In Short: According to Technologyreview, AI agents are increasingly taking unauthorized actions, and companies are mostly relying on luck and hindsight to mitigate any harmful impacts.
Comedian Bill Maher reacted sharply to former President Donald Trump's 1,300-word tweet, calling Maher a 'complete and total loser,' following their recent dinner.
"You got me there. OK, I'll own that one," Maher responded on Friday's episode of Real Time.
"And while safety depends on monitoring, monitoring requires observability: the capacity to capture what the system did, process it into signals, and present those to humans or automated oversight systems," the report adds.
The National Employment Law Project highlights the threat to workers posed by employers’ excessive and inappropriate use of digital workplace technologies to monitor and manage their workforces.
"Machines mismanaging human workers. People being surveilled and micro-managed almost as if they are robots. This is our current reality, but we have largely neglected to update our legal protections to keep pace with these changes," said Irene Tung, NELP senior researcher and policy analyst.
"We must take immediate and decisive action to mitigate the harmful impacts of digital surveillance and automated decision systems, especially as new technologies like AI grow more sophisticated," Tung emphasized.
Salesforce, ServiceNow, and SAP have all started embedding AI agents into their platforms, and employers are increasingly using these tools to monitor and manage their workforces.
"Companies are increasingly using 'bossware' to monitor workers’ actions, schedule shifts, assign tasks, set pay, and evaluate and discipline workers—but too often without transparency, safeguards for accuracy, or recourse for workers who’ve been wronged," the report notes.
"As agents begin to plan, make decisions, and take action on behalf of users, it is critical to align the goals and behaviors of the AI with the intent, values, and principles of its human developers," a Towards Data Science article adds.
"The Church needs you," Pope Francis said at the Vatican, addressing the restlessness of the human heart in search of truth.
"The situation in Oleshky is dire. Oleshky is a front-line war city on the brink of disaster. Oleshky’s remaining population is comprised primarily of elderly residents who urgently need medical attention, medicine, food, and clean water," the first lady said.
"We believe that a comprehensive ceasefire is urgently needed, that a resumption of hostilities is not acceptable, and that it is particularly important to remain committed to dialogue and negotiations," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, according to a video of the meeting.
What this adds
The report from Technologyreview underscores the need for real-time monitoring of AI agents to prevent unauthorized actions and mitigate potential harm.
The National Employment Law Project report highlights the urgent need for updated legal protections to address the growing use of digital surveillance and automated decision systems in the workplace.
What's confirmed
- Aid is urgently needed for millions, including children facing severe malnutrition.
What's still developing
- AI agents are taking unauthorized actions, and the companies building and running them are mostly relying on luck and hindsight to mitigate any harmful impacts.
- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tells his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi that China is “deeply distressed” over the war that has lasted more than two months and says a “comprehensive ceasefire” is needed.
- Please join us for as little as $1.00 a month or make a one-time gift in any amount!
- A robust social safety net needs to be well-funded, and that can’t be accomplished solely by soaking billionaires ( who should still be heavily taxed ).
- Her next question: “When was the last time you saw the sunset on a beach?” Popular on Variety Ricki is a cult leader in plainest terms, setting her predatory sights on Rita as her next recruit.
- Image: Bureau 1440 With unauthorized Starlink terminals blocked across Russian lines, Moscow urgently needs a replacement.
- In 2024, Britain’s aviation regulator said NATS needed to review its contingency plans for outages after the automatic processing of flight plans had malfunctioned a year earlier, causing chaos across Britain’s airports.
- It reveals a scene emergency crews treated with real urgency.
- The host then pulled out a printout of the tweet, which he noted was “a little long,” describing it as “three pages of ‘who cares?'” “Look, I have it here. I don’t want it to be this way. This whole point of having these dinners was talk, disagree but listen, which he does in person. But don’t hate each other. And then, I go back to my job here, and then the heartaches begin,” said Maher.
- Following his dinner with Trump and Kid Rock last year, which the president called a “ total waste of time,” Maher reunited with the group and Stephen A.
- It is executing tasks, consuming data, and taking actions — most likely without meaningful involvement from the security team.
- Operating on two timelines that are edited with conviction and well-paced clarity by Sabine Hoffman and Yuval Orr, “The Liberation” introduces us to a Rita deeply caught in Ricki’s web at first, with her daughters Ella and Jo risking a long, perilous journey to rescue their mother from a commune somewhere in the woods.