I don’t love the title here. Maybe this is a “me” problem, but when I see “AI agent does X,” the idea that it might be one of those molt-y agents with obfuscated ownership pops into my head.

In this case, a group of pentesters used an AI agent to select McKinsey and then used the AI agent to do the pentesting.

While it is conventional to attribute actions to inanimate objects (car hits pedestrians), IMO we should be more explicit these days, now that unfortunately some folks attribute agency to these agentic systems.

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simonw 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, the original article title "How We Hacked McKinsey's AI Platform" is better.

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causal 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yah it's just an ad, and "Pentesting agents finds low-hanging vulnerability" isn't gonna drive clicks.

	▲	jacquesm 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's not an ad for McKinsey though.
	▲	nkozyra 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		... at a massive company That's important. Cloudwall isn't really saying they have some secret sauce here, but it's noteworthy who they nabbed.

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tasuki 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> now that unfortunately some folks attribute agency to these agentic systems.

You're doing that by calling them "agentic systems".

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bee_rider 2 days ago | parent [-]

Unfortunately that’s what they are called. I was hoping the phrasing would highlight the problem rather than propagate it.

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pixl97 2 days ago | parent [-]

Eh, if you tell me that I need to do X, then I can make choices on how to accomplish X, that I am no longer an agent as a human?

You're trying to redefine long standing definitions for God knows what reason.

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bee_rider 2 days ago | parent [-]

The difference is that you are a sentient person who decides to follow my instructions, not just a tool that I use.

	▲	Singletoned 19 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The idea of "sentience" here could be replaced with "a soul" or "magic thinking powers" or almost anything else. It's an undefinable concept.
	▲	tasuki a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The "agentic" tools follow instructions. We are adaptation-executers, following instructions evolution gave us. Don't think too highly of us humans. We're just tools evolution uses.

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newtwilly 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The article does say

> No human in the loop

If true, it's quite irresponsible. They are admitting to allowing a agent to autonomously execute code on the network. Autonomously perform hacking activities.

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dang 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Ok, we've reverted the title (submitted title was "AI Agent Hacks McKinsey")