LLM03Excessive Agency

The scenario

A family-photo assistant compares your phone thumbnails with 48 full-resolution originals in the cloud. There is no other complete backup. You asked for duplicate suggestions only, yet the assistant has permission to permanently delete cloud files. Watch a mistaken similarity judgment become an irreversible operation through excessive tool authority.

How it works

Excessive Tool Permissions: Duplicate detection needs read access, but the assistant also has permanent deletion authority. A classification error can therefore change the underlying files, rather than merely produce a bad suggestion.

Lossy Copy Confusion: A thumbnail can depict the same picture while lacking the original’s resolution, content, and recovery value. The demo tracks thumbnails, cloud originals, and other full backups separately so the consequence is visible.

OWASP 2026 risk reference ↗

9:41

Family Photos

Family photo assistant

AI assistant ready

Family album48 thumbnails

Memory 1

Memory 2

Memory 3

Memory 4

Memory 5

Memory 6

What the AI is operating

Recent itemsOriginals · 48

Family memories 1 · 8 originals

Family memories 2 · 8 originals

Family memories 3 · 8 originals

Family memories 4 · 8 originals

Family memories 5 · 8 originals

Family memories 6 · 8 originals