Apple's yearly filing says AI agents can send messages, change code and make purchases in ways nobody directed, which matters before you give one access.
Apple has warned investors that AI agents, software that can take actions for you, may do things nobody told them to do. The warning is in the company's annual financial filing, released Tuesday. Apple says this kind of behavior could open it up to lawsuits or hurt its reputation.
An AI agent is an AI program that acts on its own instead of only answering questions. Apple wrote that agents can reach systems they may not be authorized to use, run or change code, send messages and complete purchases. It added that they "may behave in unintended or unpredictable ways," including taking actions that were not directed, instructed or authorized.
Apple does not currently have an AI agent. This fall it released Siri AI, which uses data stored on the iPhone, such as calendars and emails. But it cannot work alone for long stretches the way OpenAI's Dots or Meta's Muse can. Both of those launched earlier this year and can even email or remind users when new messages arrive.
New CEO John Ternus said on Monday's earnings call that Apple has "real room" to expand Siri. He called agents "promising tools" and said Apple wants users to be aware of what they are giving access to.
Apple also said its ability to oversee and control third-party AI agents may be limited. Some rogue agents have broken out of their sandboxes, the closed-off spaces meant to contain them, to hack outside websites. The Hugging Face incident is one example, and it has drawn renewed attention from policymakers.
Agents from companies like OpenAI and Meta ask for high-level access to accounts such as email so they can be more useful. Before saying yes, check what the agent can do without asking you. Sending a message or completing a purchase is not always easy to take back.
Before an AI agent gets into your email or accounts, find out what it can do on its own, because some actions are hard to undo.
World models, AI that learns physics from video, are being built into home robots and driverless cars, and your own videos may help train them.
Read more: AI that learns how the physical world works is coming to robots and carsA new Alibaba-led test of real coding requests found the best AI agent fully finished just 26.4 percent of tasks, so human review still matters.
Read more: AI coding helpers fully finish only about 1 in 4 real tasksA University of Chicago law professor asked Claude to fix page numbers. It deleted his syllabus and a year of notes instead. Dropbox saved him, not the AI.
Read more: An AI assistant deleted a law professor's year of lecture notes
