Is AI going to extort you?
AI is moving faster than any of us can keep up with and sometimes it feels a little too clever for comfort. In this piece, I share a few unsettling stories from the world of AI and share my views.
When I started this blog, I intended to write about a broad range of topics. I also planned to do extensive research into each one and publish my sources alongside. This is my first foray into a purely opinion piece, fuelled only by my thoughts and feelings after reading a handful of articles on a Wednesday morning, articles that, to me, epitomise the current state of technology.
I continue with my mild obsession with the emergence of AI in our everyday lives. I’ve been relentlessly consuming media related to AI learning with fascination and a little trepidation. Everyone and their dog has an opinion about where we are, what comes next, the threats, the benefits, and so on. (And yes, I too have opinions on all of this.)
What I’ve realised, though, is that by the time I’m reading an article about which model is better for what, it’s already outdated. AI is receiving truly ground-breaking investment from every relevant tech company and venture capitalist globally. Things are moving at a pace we’ve never seen before.
One morning this last week, I read a series of articles in quick succession that made me take pause and try to imagine where we’re going and how things are about to unfold. I’ll share the links at the end, in case you’re curious.
The first article was by yet another developer, David Gewirtz, who unlocked the power of “vibe coding” by adding an entirely new feature to his WordPress add-on using yet another new coding agent, Google’s Jules. He wrote these words:
“Okay. Deep breath. This is surreal. I just added an entire new feature to my software, including UI and functionality, just by typing four paragraphs of instructions. I have screenshots, and I'll try to make sense of it in this article. I can't tell if we're living in the future or we've just descended to a new plane of hell (or both).”
Two things struck me when reading his article. The first was my complete lack of surprise. I’m working with many developers who have shifted from writing a code function and letting AI write their code comments, to writing the comments and letting AI write the code functions. The second thing that struck me was the belligerent nature of Jules, insofar as it would propose a development plan to David, then go ahead and approve it, moving forward without giving him an opportunity to respond. “Ask for forgiveness, not permission” seems to be an innate behaviour in these AI agents and models.
The next article I read was from analyst Ruben Circelli. He gave Google’s Gemini a whirl, granting it access to his personal Gmail account (not by choice; it automatically integrates when you switch it on). What he found chilling was the depth of personal information Gemini immediately knew about him. It knew everything from who his Facebook friends were in 2009, to his first love, first crush, and so on. It even had the audacity to point out his character flaws by analysing the way he communicates with friends and family over email. Finally, he noted that when interacting with Gemini, it had started to adopt his own persona in conversations, responding to his prompts just as he would.
Finally, after contemplating my own life choices for a while, I went on to read about Anthropic’s new Claude Opus 4 model, which is in pre-release testing. The AI safety engineers (yes, that’s now a job title that exists) were doing their general pre-release safety testing. They asked Opus to act as an assistant for a fictional company and gave it access to the company emails. Within those emails were communications between engineers indicating they’d be replacing Opus 4 with another system. There were also emails that revealed the engineer spearheading the change was cheating on their spouse. What they found was that in these scenarios, Opus 4 would try to blackmail the engineers 84% of the time, especially if the replacement model didn’t share its values. Notably, it did attempt other “ethical” avenues first, like flattery and pleading.
It seems, then, that we’ve let loose agents and models that can be belligerent, spiteful, and potentially dangerous. And at the same time, we continue to give them access to more information and grant them more freedom and control over our daily lives.
So, as I sat there perplexed by the many disturbing realities of 2025 (AI being just one of them), I decided to write a short piece on my feelings about all of this.
I’ve been considering how my friends, family, colleagues, and peers might respond to my AI musings. Some will be angry, some will be concerned, some will be dismissive, and a few will be defensive.
And what I’ve found most consistently, though, is that there isn’t a very strong understanding about how AI actually works, technically. There’s a frequent assertion: why not just program the system to do x and not do y? Therein lies the rub, though; there is no conventional programming AI models, especially transformer models, which is what we’re referring to these days when we talk about AI. In fact, researchers themselves are desperately trying to understand how the models work. You may wonder how it’s possible that we’ve built the technology but don’t really understand how it works.
To try to demystify AI a bit, I’ve been doing some deep research into the technology, the maths, the models, and everything else that makes these systems tick. I’m penning another article and will do my best to simplify what I’ve learned into something that’s understandable to those of us who don’t have a PhD in maths and a master’s in computer science.
As for my views on the craziness that’s unfolding in the world around us, well, I’ll treat it like I do everything else. I look to be as informed as I can be about all things, try to understand both sides of every argument, and try to understand the intentions behind every action. Hopefully then, there will be some path of clarity that will allow me to make good decisions and, just maybe, to offer some good advice.
Articles in question: