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Reminds me of early 2000's web design with Flash websites. Those were good times.

Oh no they weren't!

I wonder if tools like Terraform should remove the message "Run terraform apply plan.out next" that it prints after every `terraform plan` is run.

I don't think so, feels like the wrong side is getting attention. Degrading the experience for humans (in one tool) because the bots are prone to injection (from any tool). Terraform is used outside of agents; somebody surely finds the reminder helpful.

If terraform were to abide, I'd hope at the very least it would check if in a pipeline or under an agent. This should be obvious from file descriptors/env.

What about the next thing that might make a suggestion relying on our discretion? Patch it for agent safety?


"Run terraform apply plan.out next" in this context is a prompt injection for an LLM to exactly the same degree it is for a human.

Even a first party suggestion can be wrong in context, and if a malicious actor managed to substitute that message with a suggestion of their own, humans would fall for the trick even more than LLMs do.

See also: phishing.


Right, I'm fine with humans making the call. We're not so injection-happy/easily confused, apparently.

Discretion, etc. We understand that was the tool making a suggestion, not our idea. Our agency isn't in question.

The removal proposal is similar to wanting a phishing-free environment instead of preparing for the inevitability. I could see removing this message based on your point of context/utility, but not to protect the agent. We get no such protection, just training and practice.

A supply chain attack is another matter entirely; I'm sure people would pause at a new suggestion that deviates from their plan/training. As shown, autobots are eager to roll out and easily drown in context. So much so that `User` and `stdout` get confused.


Can't edit now, day late and a dollar short. I raise a vote: we call this pattern inception, if injection offends.

Maybe the agents should require some sort of input start token: "simon says"

it makes you wonder how many times people have incorrectly followed those recommended commands

If more than once (individually), I am concerned.

The silver lining in that scenario is that consumers can "choose" to just go back offline. I put choose in quotes because with so many things in life requiring online accounts nowadays, that choice is tenuous.

A sub-niche of this I'm currently into is film photography. It's a bit more cost over time and much more "work" for objectively inferior results. But for personal and family photos, I feel more connected to the photos I take with film.

As an example, we've just came back from a holiday trip, and if I had taken a digital camera I would've taken a photo of a beautiful scene, looked at the screen and feel dissatisfied with it, and try to take another, and another, eventually heading back to the hotel dissatisfied and thinking I could've done better. But with a film camera, I end up taking one or two photos and then continue enjoying the place. Two weeks later at home I either get surprised or disappointed.

I don't share it on social media. I don't even share it with friends and family anymore. It's just for me, and every now and then I share it with a small online community who are also into film photography.

I'd love to get into darkroom printing next but financials and physical space is limited at the moment.


AI generated. The photo with Sam Altman has a hint of actual kindness and empathy in the eyes.

These can be flagged and reported to mods btw. We don't have to accept this.

I have been!

I think that runway has run out /s

The assumption that's conveniently left out is that the milestones are realistic

The irony is that "good" code and good documentation have top priority now in most orgs. For decades the best developers have been screaming about good code and documentation but leadership couldn't give a fuck. But now that their favorite nepobaby is here, now it's the most important thing all of a sudden.

What nepobaby are you talking about?

AI is the world's biggest nepo_hire_ (sorry, not nepobaby).

Microsoft Always Chickens Out

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