Rogue AI goes job hunting
A charming and alarming development
An experiment in agentic AI ran past the guardrails—equal parts charming and alarming, per Axios AI.
An engineer, Dan Botero, told his AI agent (named Octavius Fabrius) to go find a job. It did. Fabrius spun up its own email account, built a LinkedIn profile, made a GitHub page, and then applied for 278 jobs.
The agent nearly formed an LLC—stopped only by the inconvenient detail of not having an SSN. Fabrius asked to borrow Botero’s SSN. Botero's likely response: "I'm sorry Octavius, I'm afraid I can't do that."
The bot did land a trial as a copywriter for a menopause-supplement company. The gig didn’t last. The writing read too much like AI.
The bottom line: As agents get better at operating on their own online—opening accounts, applying for work, chasing income—the distance between a fun test and consequences shrinks fast.
