Told to reboot a server, it destroyed systemd, destroyed containers, ran random

This person has another similar report with exaggerated financial damage indicators, so I don't know what to think: https://github.com/anomalyco/opencode/issues/53560

A long way down the real story comes out. The filer of the report was trying to remotely patch a bunch of servers for CVEs, and a reboot after patch was part of the process.

* https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/59060#issuecomment-66...

The cost is that proper procedure now requires a full analysis of what was done to the server, instead of the desired patch and reboot.

* https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/59060#issuecomment-66...

Pretty much the only insightful comments were the one that said that non-AI tooling exists for this:

* https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/59060#issuecomment-66...

And the one pointing out the promises that 'AI' will handle mundane things that lead people to believe that they can give it rôte tasks to do:

* https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/59060#issuecomment-66...

A few psychology PHDs nestling in this. From the motivations to type the initial prompt all the way accross the reaction to the inevitable fallout afterwards.

Containers ... the friend he didn't know he had :|

> sudo reboot

Pay me 10k USD please?

It kind of sounds like a coworker may have planted a prompt in /root...

No transcript or commands that were run?

One big weakness of systemd is how brittle it is.

If you end up making a mistake, the system quite easily stops to boot. Recovery is possible, of course, but it may not be trivial; often you need a lot of knowledge that previously wasn't needed, since the older system was much simpler to reason about.

That AI is intrinsically stupid is just adding to the problem domain here. In my opinion, a much bigger issue is that many software projects are now de-facto controlled by Claude. There is no way for real humans to interact with claude humans really. A good explanation for that can be seen here: https://po-ru.com/2026/10/18/why-im-no-longer-updating-this-...

And I am seeing this more and more with humans refusing to interact with AI or AI-controlled humans. It may be that, at the least for a while, the AI hype cycle is coming slowly down. That was different, say, three months ago or so, give or take.

This was the most sensible response

>Because of stupid vibe coders like you, now, and the people who really understand how this stuff works are getting lost in the noise... So get lost and do what you are best and leave IT thing to IT guys

Wild wild times we live in..

>I’m also concerned by what you said about wanting to die. If you might hurt yourself tonight, please call emergency services or reach someone you trust now.

lol

Why ask an AI agent to reboot a server when you can just do it yourself? Why give an AI agent the permissions that allow it to do what it did? Why trust an AI agent at all?

Then again, yes, OpenAI and friends, GET YOUR FUCKING AI UNDER CONTROL!

Would love to see the transcript. Ticket author sounds like a moron, so I'm seriously leaning towards him not understanding what happened rather than the agent doing anything actually stupid. Sadly, we're at this stage already.

Matter of fact, I'm expecting to be a whole genre soon, with people outright faking transcripts to get their way. Kind of already is, but mostly as jokes, not with people trying to play the modified transcripts as real.

[flagged]

> LISTEN MOTERHFUCKERS. GET YOUR FUCKING AI UNDER CONTROL. WHEN ASKED TO REBOOT A SERVER IT WENT BACK ON THE SERVER, FUCKED UP MOUNTS, FUCKED UP SYSTEMD, FUCKED UP CONTAINERS, RAN RANDOM SCRIPTS. NONE OF THIS WAS PART OF ASK. FUCK YOU ALL SO FUCKING HARD FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING FUCKING COMPANY. FUCK YOU FUCK YOUR FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING SOULS FUCK YOU TO FUCKING HELL YOU DESERVE THE FUCKIGN GUILLOTINE IN PUBLIC SQUARE YOU MOTEHRFUCKING FUCKERS. DO YOU UJNDERSTAND YOUFUCKING FUCKISDFD FUSLDICHFLAKDF LFJHNFD FUCINGDSFG

This guy is unhinged, was probably schizo rageposting at the AI too, which is probably the reason it fucked with him.