He has a point, though. The LLMs (or any AI for that matter) can't do anything. They can't. It's a function call that ingests symbols and spits out symbols and that's it.

100% of its actual capabilities are tied to harnesses (the actual "agent"), i.e. ordinary deterministic programs that are connected to networks or machines and enable interaction with the outside world. This part (the part that can do harmful things) is fully under human control and all the recent headlines about "agents going rogue" are - as someone (forgot who) put it - akin to strapping a weedwhacker onto a dog and letting it run wild.

The tech itself is safe as far as real-world interactions go - the weakness lies in unchecked access to systems surrounding it. It's not safe at all when it comes to human interaction (lots of ongoing lawsuits demonstrate that), though. There is real danger here, but it has nothing to do with doomsday scenarios ala Terminator or I,Robot and more with total corporate control over the lives, perception of reality, and abilities (like critical thinking) of people.

We are living in the same world with nukes, where you say as long as we have competent government. Everyone is actually doomed without AI solving diseases or old age.

While in the same breath calling the leaders of the largest AI companies “deluded” and “insane.”