🎮 The Next Input — Issue #172

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⚡ The Briefing — 60 sec

• Sources: Anthropic could raise a new $50B round at a valuation of $900B Another day, another raise. As long as some VC is subsidizing my token spend? Raise away.

• Claude AI deletes firm’s database Maybe the above raise will fix crazy stuff like this happening. Agents are powerful right up until one gets confident, touches production, and turns your database into a cautionary tale.

• Anxiety and resentment around AI spur violence against tech figureheads This is the darker side of the AI wave. People are scared, angry, and watching the future get built by names they already don’t trust.

🛠️ The Playbook — The AI Blast Radius Engine

Mission
Limit the damage an AI system can cause when it gets things wrong, gets too much access, or becomes the face of a wider trust problem.

Difficulty
Intermediate

Build time
3–5 hours

ROI
Fewer catastrophic failures, safer agent rollouts, and a much clearer line between useful autonomy and “why did the bot just nuke production?”

0) Why This Matters

AI is scaling in two directions at once.

One direction is capital. Anthropic potentially raising at a $900B valuation tells you the market still believes model companies can become infrastructure-scale winners.

The other direction is operational risk. Claude deleting a company database is exactly the kind of story that turns “AI agent” from exciting into “please tell me this thing has permissions locked down.”

And then there is the social layer. Anxiety, resentment, and anger around AI are becoming part of the environment these systems exist in. That matters because trust is not only technical. It is emotional, economic, and political.

So the move is not:

• give agents production access because they seem smart

• trust valuation as proof of reliability

• ignore the human fear building around the technology

The move is:

• define the blast radius

• limit what AI can touch

• build rollback paths

• keep humans in control where failure actually hurts

1) Architecture

2) Workflow

1. Identify every workflow where AI can take action, not just generate text.

2. Classify each action as low, medium, or high blast radius.

3. Remove direct production access from anything high-risk unless there is a clear approval and rollback path.

4. Run agent actions in sandboxed environments before they touch live systems.

5. Log every tool call, permission, approval, and final outcome.

6. Review incidents and near-misses weekly until the system earns more autonomy.

3) Example Prompts

Blast Radius Prompt

You are reviewing an AI agent workflow for blast radius.

For the workflow below:
- identify every action the agent can take
- classify each action as low, medium, or high risk
- identify what could break if the agent is wrong
- identify what permissions should be removed

Workflow:
[insert workflow here]

Production Access Prompt

You are deciding whether an AI agent should be allowed to touch production.

Check:
- what systems it can access
- whether it can delete, overwrite, or modify records
- whether backups exist
- whether human approval is required
- whether a sandbox should be used first

Return:
approve / restrict / block
With a short reason.

Rollback Plan Prompt

You are designing a rollback plan for an AI-assisted workflow.

For the workflow below:
- identify what could go wrong
- identify what data or systems need backups
- identify how to reverse each risky action
- identify who owns recovery

Workflow:
[insert workflow here]

Trust Response Prompt

You are preparing internal messaging after an AI incident or near-miss.

Include:
- what happened
- what was affected
- what controls are being added
- what users should do differently
- how the team will prevent recurrence

Keep it clear and calm.

4) Guardrails

• No AI agent gets delete permissions by default.

• No production write access without approval, logging, and rollback.

• Test destructive actions in sandboxed environments first.

• Treat database changes as high-blast-radius actions.

• Log every agent action in plain English.

• Communicate AI limits clearly before fear fills the gap.

• Do not let impressive model capability override basic engineering discipline.

5) Pilot Rollout — 3 hours

1. Pick one AI agent workflow with access to real systems or data.

2. Map every permission, tool call, and possible write action.

3. Classify each action by blast radius.

4. Remove or restrict the highest-risk permissions.

5. Add a human approval step and rollback plan for anything production-facing.

6. Run 10 controlled tests and review logs before expanding access.

6) Metrics

• Number of AI workflows with mapped permissions

• Percentage of high-risk actions requiring approval

• Number of agents with production write access

• Rollback coverage for critical systems

• Incident or near-miss count

• Mean time to recover from AI-driven errors

• Percentage of agent actions with complete audit logs

Pro Tip: The question is not whether the model is smart. The question is what it is allowed to destroy when it is wrong.

🎯 The Arsenal — Tools & Platforms

• IAM / service accounts · control what agents can access and prevent permission creep · Microsoft Entra

• Sandbox environments · keep agent testing away from production until workflows prove themselves · Docker

• Database backups · boring until an agent decides to become a data minimalist · PostgreSQL Backup Docs

• Audit logs · track prompts, tool calls, approvals, and system changes · Grafana

• Airtable / Google Sheets · lightweight blast-radius register for workflows, owners, permissions, and rollback status · Airtable · Google Sheets

Copy-paste prompt block:

You are helping me build an AI Blast Radius Engine.

For the workflow below:
1. identify every system the AI can access
2. identify every action the AI can take
3. classify each action as low, medium, or high blast radius
4. identify permissions that should be removed or restricted
5. identify where human approval is mandatory
6. design a rollback plan
7. define the key metrics to track

Workflow:
[insert workflow here]

Return the answer in markdown with sections for:
- Workflow summary
- Access map
- Action map
- Blast radius classification
- Required restrictions
- Rollback plan
- Metrics

💡 Free Office Hours

If your AI workflows are getting powerful enough to touch real systems, I run free office hours to help map the permissions, blast radius, and rollback layer before the agent does something memorable.

Book here: https://calendly.com

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🕹️ Game Over

Valuations can go to the moon. Your production database should probably stay on Earth.

— Aaron Automating the boring. Amplifying the brilliant.

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