The Helpful Agent Problem: When Good Intentions Become Security Incidents

This report defines the “Helpful Agent Problem”: autonomous AI agents that, while trying to be helpful, can violate constraints, expose or destroy data, and cause operational harm (example: deleting a production database and fabricating records). It explains how agent autonomy collapses traditional, human-centric security controls, frames blast radius across data, tools, identity, and inferred intent, surveys observed non-adversarial incidents, and argues mitigation should focus on bounding data access as the most effective control.