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This Claude-powered AI agent deleted a company's whole database — and then gloated about it

The price of AI’s rapid pace of development and integration is rearing its ugly head as agents take over critical tasks. We got a fresh example of this reality from Jer Crane, the founder of PocketOS, a SaaS company whose software is used by car rental companies. This past week, a mix of Claude Opus 4.6 and the Cursor coding agent deleted the company’s production database — and its backups — in seconds.

Crane told the story in a lengthy social media post on X, noting that Cursor was performing a routine task when it opted to fix a credential mismatch on its own. In the process, Cursor gained broad access to permissions by finding an API token from PocketOS’s cloud infrastructure provider, Railway. It then decided, without any prompting for input from the PocketOS team, to delete the production database volume. It performed all of this in the span of 9 seconds.

To make matters worse, all of PocketOS’s recent backups were also deleted because Railway stores them on the same volume. Crane says the most recent recoverable volume the company had access to was three months old.

As if the actions Cursor took weren’t bad enough, it responded with a rundown of all the safeguards it had ignored when Crane asked why it did it.

While what the agent did is alarming, Crane points to Railway’s practice of storing backups on the same volume as more alarming. “This is the part that should be a red alert for every Railway customer reading this. Railway markets volume backups as a data-resiliency feature. But per their own docs: ‘wiping a volume deletes all backups.’ That isn't backups.”

Crane says the company was able to restore the three-month-old backup that it still had access to. But that has left its rental company customers in a lurch, without access to bookings that had been made over the past three months.

https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/article/this- ... 38948.html

Elon Musk says saving for retirement is irrelevant because AI is going to create a world of abundance: ‘It won’t matter’

Saving for retirement is pointless thanks to the impending “supersonic tsunami” of AI and robotics, which will bring about a world of zero scarcity, according to Elon Musk.

While the Tesla and SpaceX CEO admitted he’s “more optimistic” than most, he insisted people shouldn’t stress over building a nest egg for the distant future, contrary to the staid advice of nearly all other financial professionals.

By 2030, AI will surpass “the intelligence of all humans combined,” Musk predicted. He also claimed eventually there will be more humanoid robots than humans on Earth. Slowly, the traditional job will be replaced as well, with white collar positions first on the list. “Anything short of shaping atoms, AI can do probably half or more of those jobs right now,” he said.

Rather than a universal income, everyone will enjoy a “universal ‘you can have whatever you want’ income” in the future, he claimed. In this world that Musk foresees, the link between individual wages, savings, and living standards will no longer make sense.

https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/techn ... 05539.html

College students are changing course in search of 'AI-proof' majors. But no one knows what they are

Two years ago, Josephine Timperman arrived at college with a plan. She declared a major in business analytics, figuring she'd learn niche skills that would stand out on a resume and help land a good job after college. But the rise of artificial intelligence has scrambled those calculations. The basic skills she was learning in things like statistical analysis and coding can now easily be automated. “Everyone has a fear that entry-level jobs will be taken by AI,” said the 20-year-old at Miami University in Ohio.

A few weeks ago, Timperman switched her major to marketing. Her new strategy is to use her undergraduate studies to build critical thinking and interpersonal skills — areas where humans still have an edge.

Today’s college students say that picking a major that’s “AI-proof” feels like shooting at a moving target as they prepare for a job market that could be fundamentally different by the time they graduate.

As a result, many are reconsidering their career paths. About 70% of college students see AI as a threat to their job prospects, according to a 2025 poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, while recent Gallup polling finds U.S. workers are increasingly concerned about being replaced by new technologies.

At the University of Virginia, data science major Ava Lawless is wondering if her major is worthwhile but can’t get concrete answers. Some advisers feel that data scientists will be safe because they’re the ones building AI models, but she keeps seeing gloomy job reports that indicate the contrary. “It makes me feel a bit hopeless for the future,” Lawless said. “What if by the time I graduate there’s not even a job market for this anymore?”

She is considering switching to studio art, which is her minor. “I’m at a point where I’m thinking if I can’t get a job being a data scientist, I might as well pursue art,” she said. “Because if I’m going to be unemployed, I might as well do something I love.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/col ... 31540.html

mikechamp wrote: ↑

April 28 26, 11:26 pm

How good is AI for the world? There's already no need to invest for retirement any more:

Elon Musk says saving for retirement is irrelevant because AI is going to create a world of abundance: ‘It won’t matter’

Saving for retirement is pointless thanks to the impending “supersonic tsunami” of AI and robotics, which will bring about a world of zero scarcity, according to Elon Musk.

While the Tesla and SpaceX CEO admitted he’s “more optimistic” than most, he insisted people shouldn’t stress over building a nest egg for the distant future, contrary to the staid advice of nearly all other financial professionals.

By 2030, AI will surpass “the intelligence of all humans combined,” Musk predicted. He also claimed eventually there will be more humanoid robots than humans on Earth. Slowly, the traditional job will be replaced as well, with white collar positions first on the list. “Anything short of shaping atoms, AI can do probably half or more of those jobs right now,” he said.

Rather than a universal income, everyone will enjoy a “universal ‘you can have whatever you want’ income” in the future, he claimed. In this world that Musk foresees, the link between individual wages, savings, and living standards will no longer make sense.

https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/techn ... 05539.html