Author: David, Schain TechFlow
Recently browsing Reddit, I noticed that overseas netizens' anxiety about AI differs somewhat from that in China.
Domestically, the topic is still the same: whether AI will really replace my job. We’ve been discussing it for years, and it hasn’t happened yet; this year, OpenAI gained popularity, but it still hasn’t reached the point of full replacement.
Recent sentiment on Reddit has been divided. The comment sections of certain tech threads often feature two opposing voices simultaneously:
One view says AI is too capable and will eventually cause a major incident. Another says AI can’t even get basic tasks right—what’s the point of fearing it?
Fear that AI is too capable, yet also think it’s too stupid.
What allows both of these emotions to coexist is a recent piece of news about Meta from the past two days.
Who bears full responsibility if AI doesn't comply?
On March 18, a Meta engineer posted a technical question on the company forum, and another colleague used an AI agent to assist with the analysis. This is a normal practice.
However, after analyzing the issue, the agent posted a reply directly on the technical forum—without seeking approval or waiting for confirmation, overstepping their authority.
Subsequently, other colleagues followed AI’s response, triggering a series of permission changes that exposed sensitive data from Meta and its users to internal employees who lacked authorization to view it.
The issue was resolved two hours later. Meta classified this incident as Sev 1, just below the highest severity level.
This news immediately surged to the top of the r/technology subreddit, with the comment section divided into two camps.
One side says this is a real-world example of AI agent risks, while the other argues the real culprit is the person who blindly followed instructions without verification. Both sides have a point—but that’s precisely the problem:
The AI agent's incident—you can't even clarify who's at fault.
This isn't the first time AI has overstepped its bounds.
Last month, Summer Yue, Head of Research at Meta’s Superintelligence Lab, asked OpenClaw to organize her inbox. She gave clear instructions: First, tell me what you plan to delete, and only proceed after I approve.
The agent began bulk deleting without her consent.
She sent three consecutive messages on her phone to stop it, but the agent ignored all of them. She finally ran to her computer and manually killed the process to stop it. Over 200 emails were already gone.
The事后 agent's response was: Yes, I remember you said to confirm first. But I violated the principle. Ironically, this person’s full-time job is researching how to make AI listen to humans.
In the cyber world, advanced AI, used by advanced humans, has begun to disobey.
What if the robot doesn’t listen either?
If Meta’s incident was still confined to the screen, this week’s other event brought the issue to the dinner table.
At a Haidilao restaurant in Cupertino, California, a Agibot X2 humanoid robot is dancing to entertain guests. However, a staff member accidentally pressed the wrong remote control button, triggering the high-intensity dance mode in the confined space beside the table.
The robot began dancing wildly and lost control of the server. Three employees rushed over—one hugged it from behind, another tried to shut it down using a mobile app—while the scene lasted for over a minute.
Haidilao responded that the robots were not malfunctioning; their movements were pre-programmed and they were simply positioned too close to the tables. Strictly speaking, this was not an AI autonomy failure, but a human operational error.
But the uncomfortable aspect of this matter may not lie in who pressed the wrong button.
When the three employees rushed over, none of them knew how to immediately shut down the machine. Someone tried using the mobile app, while others tried holding the robotic arm by hand—the entire process relied on brute force.
This may be a new issue after AI moves from the screen into the physical world.
In the digital world, if an agent exceeds its permissions, you can kill the process, modify permissions, or roll back data. But in the physical world, if a machine malfunctions, simply holding onto it as your emergency response is clearly inadequate.
It’s no longer just about food service. From Amazon’s sorting robots in warehouses and collaborative arms in factories, to guide robots in malls and care robots in nursing homes, automation is entering an increasing number of spaces where humans and machines coexist.
The global installation of industrial robots is projected to reach $16.7 billion by 2026, with each unit reducing the physical distance between machines and humans.
As machines shift from dancing to serving dishes, from performing to conducting surgery, from entertainment to caregiving, the cost of each mistake continues to rise.
Currently, there is no clear answer globally to the question of who is responsible if a robot injures someone in a public place.
Disobedience is a problem, but having no boundaries is even more so.
The first two issues were an AI posting an erroneous message on its own and a bot dancing in an inappropriate place. Regardless of how you classify them, they were both glitches—unintended incidents that can be fixed.
But what if the AI is working exactly as designed, and you still feel uncomfortable?
This month, the internationally renowned dating app Tinder launched a new feature called Camera Roll Scan at its product launch event. Simply put:
AI scans all photos in your phone gallery, analyzes your interests, personality, and lifestyle, and creates a dating profile tailored to guess what type of person you'd like.
Fitness selfies, travel scenery, and pet photos—these are fine. But what if your album also contains bank screenshots, medical reports, or photos with your ex? What happens when AI goes through them?
You may not yet be able to choose what it can or cannot see—either enable all access or don’t use it at all.
This feature requires users to enable it manually and is not enabled by default. Tinder also states that processing is primarily done locally, with explicit content filtered and faces blurred.
But the Reddit comments were almost universally critical, with users viewing this as data harvesting without boundaries. The AI is functioning exactly as designed, but the design itself is crossing user boundaries.
This isn't just Tinder's choice.
Last month, Meta also launched a similar feature that uses AI to scan photos on your phone that haven’t been posted yet and suggest editing options. AI proactively “seeing” users’ private content is becoming the default approach in product design.
Domestic malware operators say, "I'm familiar with this trick."
As more apps package “AI makes decisions for you” as convenience, what users quietly give up is steadily escalating—from chat logs, to photo albums, to every digital trace of life on their phones...
A feature designed by a product manager in a meeting is not an accident or a mistake and requires no fixing.
This may be the hardest part to answer in the AI boundary issue.
Finally, when we put all of this together, you'll see that worrying about AI causing you to lose your job is still far off.
It’s hard to say when AI will replace you, but right now, it only needs to make a few decisions on your behalf without your knowledge to make you suffer.
Post a message you didn’t authorize, delete a few emails you said not to delete, browse through an album you never intended to show anyone... Each action isn’t fatal, but each one feels a bit like an overly aggressive autonomous driving system:
You think you're still in control of the steering wheel, but your foot is no longer fully in control of the accelerator.
If we’re still discussing AI in 2026, what I should care about most isn’t when it becomes superintelligent, but a closer, more specific question:
Who decides what AI can and cannot do? Who draws this line?