Fully Autonomous AI Agents Should NOT be Developed, says Hugging Face’s Margaret Mitchell
We’re entering an era where AI systems don’t just follow prompts—they act independently. But what happens when we hand over too much control?In this episode of Agents of Tech, our hosts Stephen Horn, Autria Godfrey and Laila Rizvi sit down with Margaret Mitchell, Chief Ethics Scientist at Hugging Face and one of the world’s leading voices on AI ethics. Together, they explore what autonomy really means in artificial intelligence—and why we can’t afford to be passive observers.#AIEthics #ResponsibleAI #TechForGood #EthicalAI #HumanInTheLoop #AIRegulationTopics include:🔹 Why AI autonomy is fundamentally different from traditional automation🔹 The real risks of removing human oversight🔹 How trust and anthropomorphism distort our judgment🔹 What “human in the loop” must mean going forwardThis is a must-watch conversation for anyone working with AI—or impacted by it (which means all of us).https://huggingface.co/papers/2502.02649🎧 Listen now on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe for more deep tech insight. 0:00:00 - Intro: Are we giving AI too much control?0:00:17 - Meet DeepSeek and Monica – the next-gen AI agents0:00:58 - The ethics of autonomous AI0:02:13 - Guest intro: Margaret Mitchell on AI autonomy0:04:12 - Human control vs machine independence0:06:25 - AI, society, and the illusion of moral reasoning0:07:49 - Security risks from autonomous coding agents0:11:27 - The BBC analogy & user-generated chaos0:13:42 - Deepfakes, consent & harmful content0:15:45 - Why AI doesn’t think like us0:17:22 - Sensitive data, agents & social media nightmares0:19:30 - Ease vs privacy: Why people give up control0:21:00 - Good uses of agents: Accessibility & productivity0:22:30 - AI and the future of creative jobs0:24:20 - Capitalism, AGI & the wealth imbalance0:26:10 - Margaret's message to governments0:27:50 - Rights-based regulation vs restriction0:29:35 - Looking 10 years ahead: Margaret’s fears & hopes0:31:30 - Final reflections: Are we too late?0:35:30 - Outro: Like, share & subscribe!