<![CDATA[AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things.]]>AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. For example and AI agent might notice your bank balence is low due to all your polymarket gambling and sign you up for a $890 "financial literacy bootcamp" and send your spouse a text telling them to check in on you. It's the future. But hold on. We've seen this before.

Remember IFTTT?
It also used your logins to do things, but you had to write the programs yourself. I used it to make my lights flash red whenever congress passed a bill.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/topic/ebc10901-d7de-4482-bf05-5510fcf730e7/ai-agents-are-programs-that-use-your-logins-to-do-things.RSS for NodeThu, 30 Apr 2026 07:30:27 GMTWed, 01 Apr 2026 13:55:21 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:22:11 GMT]]>@futurebird

It’s worse. Far worse.

IFTTT can’t “decide” to donate 98% of your savings to a maga pac. An agentic LLM might.

Oh, you set safeguards?

Nice, how do they work? Same way LLMs work generally. Like hiring toddlers to watch your toddlers. Except that toddlers actually comprehend.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.cat/users/CptSuperlative/statuses/116329895158055628https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.cat/users/CptSuperlative/statuses/116329895158055628Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:22:11 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:16:51 GMT]]>@futurebird No thank you. That sounds dangerous. Some people still write checks and some ATM machines, like at diners, mom and pop stores, etc, don't clear until later or the next day even. What happens when someone writes a check or does a large purchase with their ATM Debit card that doesn't clear right away, nor informs the AI control account, but AI has moved money around, esp lower income with limited income or unsophisticated AI users ticking settings and permissions they know nothing about and it's just not there to cover the charges? Bad checks charges? Theft by deception charges? Will there be an "AI caused it" defense?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://oldfriends.live/users/paul/statuses/116329874137802260https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://oldfriends.live/users/paul/statuses/116329874137802260Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:16:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:10:28 GMT]]>@futurebird There's a lot of people that still use IFTTT in the self-host home automation circle.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://oldfriends.live/users/paul/statuses/116329849043136829https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://oldfriends.live/users/paul/statuses/116329849043136829Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:10:28 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:09:42 GMT]]>@brunox @futurebird

IIRC people who used IFTTT for post propagation from one service to another usually caught blocks from those who didn't know/didn't trust it. Wonder if that is still a thing.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/angelastella/statuses/116329846077225703https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/angelastella/statuses/116329846077225703Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:09:42 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:09:28 GMT]]>@futurebird I still use it with regularity!

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.majorshouse.com/users/majorlinux/statuses/116329845150801985https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.majorshouse.com/users/majorlinux/statuses/116329845150801985Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:09:28 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:09:07 GMT]]>@futurebird I don't think there's anything mean about querying the purpose of inaccurate tools used primarily for convenience.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://rage.love/users/perigee/statuses/116329843731422603https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://rage.love/users/perigee/statuses/116329843731422603Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:09:07 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:08:23 GMT]]>@futurebird Also my system specifically (I don't run any such thing), I could just plunk the tools down next to home assistant on the same machine and have no passwords involved at all. And it could talk to my network too. No passwords, just local control.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://kolektiva.social/users/aredridel/statuses/116329840864704856https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://kolektiva.social/users/aredridel/statuses/116329840864704856Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:08:23 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:07:54 GMT]]>@futurebird Can I rant about the "primitive AI" topic of AI agents being individual members of a botswarm?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.cat/users/riley/statuses/116329838947725968https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://toot.cat/users/riley/statuses/116329838947725968Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:07:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:07:42 GMT]]>@futurebird I actually have one automation set up for it. It monitors an RSS feed, and then sends a slack message if there’s a post meeting certain conditions. Very simple and effective, and fits into their free usage tier.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://babka.social/users/josh0/statuses/116329838199197911https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://babka.social/users/josh0/statuses/116329838199197911Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:07:42 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:07:32 GMT]]>@futurebird Yeah, but it did so little that at least when I used it, there was always somewhere else.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://kolektiva.social/users/aredridel/statuses/116329837551609950https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://kolektiva.social/users/aredridel/statuses/116329837551609950Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:07:32 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:06:42 GMT]]>@futurebird I know people who still use it. Mostly tiny automations and not something IoT-esque like turning lights off but kinda like sending a notices if some web changes or something.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.uy/users/brunox/statuses/116329834219165943https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.uy/users/brunox/statuses/116329834219165943Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:06:42 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:03:27 GMT]]>https://ifttt.com/

It's still around I see. I wonder who is still using it?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://sauropods.win/users/futurebird/statuses/116329821462945748https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://sauropods.win/users/futurebird/statuses/116329821462945748Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:03:27 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:01:55 GMT]]>@aredridel

Everything was in one place with IFTTT too?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://sauropods.win/users/futurebird/statuses/116329815435543703https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://sauropods.win/users/futurebird/statuses/116329815435543703Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:01:55 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:01:45 GMT]]>@futurebird as I understand it, one of the factors making IFTTT less useful was that more and more services that you might have wanted to connect it to were taking away their public APIs because they didn't want to be interoperable - they wanted to lock you in to their own systems. An LLM can interact more or less like a human, so it can get around these barriers at the cost of being unreliable in whole new ways.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://friend.camp/users/ranjit/statuses/116329814773308130https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://friend.camp/users/ranjit/statuses/116329814773308130Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:01:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:59:57 GMT]]>@futurebird The way they're usually integrated, you run an instance of a service that has the passwords, all in one place, and not ... entirely ... under the control of anyone but you. (It's more complicated than absolute).

Having a single place it all lives makes it relatively easy to maintain.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://kolektiva.social/users/aredridel/statuses/116329807681138783https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://kolektiva.social/users/aredridel/statuses/116329807681138783Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:59:57 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:59:48 GMT]]>@futurebird I can sort of understand why someone would delegate this task to an LLM because you can have it do more complicated step-by-step tasks in natural language instructions, but even then you'll only get like 80 to 90% accuracy with what you want from it and it'll probably hallucinate something wrong about your task. 🤷

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://meow.social/users/chirpbirb/statuses/116329807088303545https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://meow.social/users/chirpbirb/statuses/116329807088303545Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:59:48 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:59:44 GMT]]>@futurebird the problem with technology at the moment is that programmers made a very complicated and expensive algorithm for determining the likely next word in a document (basically fancy autocomplete) and then I guess all programmers got raptured and the marketing team took over?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.lubar.me/users/ben/statuses/116329806888376167https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.lubar.me/users/ben/statuses/116329806888376167Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:59:44 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:59:07 GMT]]>@futurebird While some of my coworkers do, in fact, want AI, I wrote this piece while gathering system requirements from my coworkers last spring.

It's that control element that's missing: https://ruthtillman.com/post/macros-not-ai/

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://glammr.us/users/platypus/statuses/116329804428582834https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://glammr.us/users/platypus/statuses/116329804428582834Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:59:07 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to AI agents are programs that use your logins to do things. on Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:57:53 GMT]]>IFTTT wasn't a terrible idea. "turn off the lights when I'm more than 1 mile from home" isn't a bad automation. But failed, mostly because it just didn't work reliably. Coordinating the logins and apps was difficult. If you changed a password everything would break.

Why is it better to have an generate IFTTT task for you? I'm not just asking to be mean I really want to know.

We've done this. What did we learn from IFTTT?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://sauropods.win/users/futurebird/statuses/116329799597604368https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://sauropods.win/users/futurebird/statuses/116329799597604368Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:57:53 GMT