Falling Down the Rabbit Hole
It is easier than you might think to fall into unseen traps with AI. Humans inherently drive their existence around assumptions we make automatically and take for granted. Case in point, I sent my custom system agent with the task "Check the event logs for errors" Very straight forward right? I thought so too, for a little while.
I was alerted to some logs being cleared this morning after I went to sleep. The bells went off, what system app has that capability? (none) I started sifting through the logs and discover that I have entries older than this morning. I searched for the 104,1104 event id's and discovered that it was in April. It was like I was smacked in the face with a big Trout.
Grounding context:
I didn't specify any date range or mention time in any way. The event tool in my application, Sentinel Core reads the top of the log unless you feed it a date range. AI does not come with their own Rolex so they will not ground the response or place any emphasis on linear events unless you specify it. If I had said 'in the last 48hrs' it would have grabbed the most recent events.
This seems like a rather benign issue unless you are a Statistician or a Stockbroker where everything is guided by time. Just a word or even a letter can send the AI response off in another direction and have catastrophic consequences. I had a different model analyze the initial response and it slipped through the cracks.
Conclusion:
When automating anything with AI always set up checks and balances, that is just standard. With AI you have to get creative, to ensure that you don't get caught with your pants down. Any time you are creating a prompt for AI run it through a different one and ask it to find gaps or problems. You will be surprised with the results and the unique (and strict) way that AI looks at things. I have thousands of hours of logs just with Windows Copilot and 3 paid subscriptions for other AI and I constantly have them check each other and every time I learn some quirk of behavior that could go sideways in a hurry.
If I wasn't in such a hurry doing too many things at once, I wouldn't have shortened the task by 4 little words and I wouldn't have lost 2 hours chasing ghosts. - Kyle
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