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Comment by PcChip | Hacker News Reader

The submission title says it happened, but the company denies it

The denial is from the TV4, not the production company, and it's not so much a denial as just saying "we didn't hear that AI did it", TV4 confirms the entire final cut is gone:

> Det som vi har fått från produktionen är att det har varit ett tekniskt haveri som har gjort att material som är klippt har försvunnit och att vi därför måste klippas om på nytt. Och att vi därför behöver skjuta fram premiären till 2027, säger Ludvig Ternstedt, pressansvarig för ”The challenge”.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/31oE8A/the-challeng...

Yes, but the submission article (https://swedenherald.com/article/tv4-postpones-the-challenge...) is after that Aftonbladet article, and in the submission, they deny it's because of AI and claims it's because one of the backup systems failed...

> “It is not true that some independent AI agent went in and deleted the material,” says Mia Lindqvist, program director at TV4, to Sveriges Radio’s P4 Stockholm.

> A backup system at the production company failed, she says. “This means they now have to edit everything from scratch.”

To be honest, neither "Sweden Herald" nor Aftonbladet are "reputable sources" when it comes to reporting on news, technical details or even details at all. The latter is a tabloid in fact, and the former borderline "random online newsblog", I wouldn't lend too much credence to them.

SVT is probably a more trustworthy source (in this case) and their quote is this:

> “There was a technical glitch during production that caused the edited footage to be lost, so now it has to be re-edited. That’s why we need to postpone the premiere until 2027. However, it’s not true that some malicious AI agent acted on its own and deleted the footage,” writes Ludvig Ternstedt, TV4’s press officer for “The Challenge,” to SVT. - https://www.svt.se/kultur/tekniskt-haveri-tv4-skjuter-upp-re...

They say "Elak" rather than "Ond", which I'd translate as "Malicious" rather than "Evil", FWIW.

And they needed the backup because...?

You don't get to blame AI if it irreversibly deletes your data.

You either didn't have backup or didn't contain your agent to a place it cannot do irreversible harm.

Actually Toy Story 2 was also (almost) lost because backups were not working for month+: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_2#Troubled_productio...

A stay at home mom working remotely (In 1998!) to take care of newborn had a copy on her computer...

Pedantic, but 'Stay at home' generally refers to someone who's chosen to not partake in the work-force, and instead raise a child/children. "Stay at home mom working remotely" is paradoxical, I think.

This doesn't take away from your point, though.

As a former stay at home Dad, I endorse the above message. Also, FYI, there is no trouble to fill the days with hard and rewarding tasks. (The question I would get from men at parties was always how I filled my time; with a 1 and 5 year old and a politician spouse!)

The swiss cheese model of accident causes applies. No one cause would have triggered the accident on its own, it takes an unfortunate alignment of multiple issues. You still have to treat each as a cause.

In this case, a fault by the AI agent, bad permission management and faulty backups all seem to be contributing causes. None of them should have happened

> “It is not true that some independent AI agent went in and deleted the material,”

That's odd, when I viewed the article the quote was them saying it wasn't 'some evil AI agent' but in the literal minutes since the quote has been replaced with one saying 'independent AI agent'. Wayback Machine confirms this. When I initially read it the quote could be plausibly interpreted as 'well it wasn't some evil AI agent that did this'.

So a non-malicious agent made an error or misinterpreted instructions, which is what I would have expected.

Not really. If you read between the lines you see there's a story she's avoiding.

> It is not true that some independent AI agent went in and deleted the material

Notice the wording. It's a half-truth response. She's probably correct, but the accusation wasn't that a "some independent AI agent went in and deleted the material". Just a AI deleted the material.

Then backup failed as the reason. That's not THE reason. You don't need backups unless you lose your data. How did the data get lost?

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