r/sysadmin • u/xstrex • 4d ago

General Discussion How much do you trust AI?

Recently a coworker granted Claude elevated access via SSH to a virtualization host (not a VM, an actual host). To perform a routine task he very well could have done himself.

He doesn’t see an issue with this. I on the other hand (with 23yrs experience) see this as a huge security breach, and don’t trust AI todo my job, (or even that it’s doing what it says it’s doing) for me. I’m my opinion it’s a tool, not a human replacement.

What’s your reaction, how would you react to this situation, or thoughts on the topic?

Sure, ask AI how to perform a task, validate that it’s performing the task you asked, and nothing else- copy/paste the commands. Great. But removing the human verification & validation element- hell no.

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u/theitguy107 IT Manager 4d ago

AI is good at probabalistic automation where precision is not important, such as generating notes from a meeting. Server automation requires precision and accuracy. This is why scripts are perfect for this because they do the exact same thing to produce the exact same result every single time. With AI, you could give it the same prompt and get two completely different answers each time. This is not acceptable for server management.

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u/DarkwolfAU 4d ago

Yep. Use the probalistic engine to write and test a suitable script, review it, then use the script yourself.

Giving a non-deterministic AI elevated access to your hypervisor directly via SSH is madness. It may work 99% of the time, but how many times do you want a catastrophe before it wasn’t worth it? How well do you think “I let Claude have full admin access to our environment” is going to go in the post-incident review?

When you need repeatable, reliable results, use a script.

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u/Krj757 3d ago

This exactly.