What Is AI Telling Prospective Employers About You?
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This episode is sponsored by HPE. Today's networks must evolve from simply providing connectivity to harnessing AI to deliver exceptional connected experiences. At the break, HPE's Rami Rahim shares how self-driving networks can make that happen.
Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, July 17th. I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal. Security experts say not to give your passwords to a chatbot, but AI agents can't do much without access to your accounts. We're test-driving a new feature from a popular password manager that lets Anthropix Cloud log in securely. But should you hand over your credentials? Then, routine background checks are starting to dig deeper with the help of AI. We'll explain how technology is changing the way employers vet job candidates. And why you shouldn't be surprised if your bachelor party photos come up in a job interview. It all starts with a secret handshake. A new integration from password manager 1Password lets Claude AI agents access your accounts without revealing your passwords.
Here's how it works. When Claude needs to log into one of your online accounts, it asks 1Password to handle the sign-in. After a biometric authentication, 1Password fills in your credentials without exposing your password to the chatbot. or anthropic servers. But just because you can grant access to your accounts doesn't necessarily mean you should. WSJ personal tech columnist Nicole Nguyen put this new feature to the test and is here to explain how it went and which accounts she would think twice about connecting. Nicole, how did you feel in the moment that you gave Claude access to your passwords?
Very nervous. I think I was I felt some sweat forming, you know, because I've been covering hacks for a long time. And also, I've been testing agents for over a year now, and I've seen how they do things that are unpredictable. The CTO of 1Password, who I talked to, Nancy Wang, said that agents act like humans, but they work like machines. And by that, she means they're making decisions like a human, but like a machine, it can go on forever. We clock out at the end of the day, but an agent does not. And so it is persistent. And if it's not satisfied with how it's finished the task, it will keep going and going and going. And sometimes that has very unintended consequences.
So which tasks did sharing access allow you to offload, and what was the process like?
So I started with some low-stakes stuff because I was afraid of giving Claude access. I knew that 1Password wasn't going to share my password with Claude, but Claude still got into my accounts and could see into those accounts and could take action in those accounts, so I wanted to be careful. So first I just had to do simple stuff like renew my library books. Okay, simple enough. Then I had it log into WSJ.com and find our staff's June fiction book recommendations and add those to my read later list, which it did. Totally fine. So I was like, okay, let's ratchet it up a little. I found a flight I liked on Google Flights and had Claude log into my Chase account and To see how much that flight would cost in credit card points.
And turns out credit card points weren't worth it. And, you know, that's something that I would have done anyway. But Claude spared me the 10 minutes or whatever of trying to navigate Chase's travel portal. And so it did okay. And then I, you know, for the purposes of content, I wanted to see, like, with a sensitive account, how Claude would behave. And so I gave it access to my credentials and 1Password to my 401k account. And I don't recommend you give... an AI agent access to your life savings. But it did tell me that my investment election for my 401k was costing me over $400 annually in fees and proposed a new fund mix that would cost me $15 a year. And I haven't taken action on that yet. But I thought like this is pretty useful.
And I'm glad that I gave it access one time. But I think ultimately, there are some jobs that are better left to humans.
It sounds like you're probably least comfortable sharing access to your 401k account.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–5:32
2
What new 1Password–Claude integration lets AI agents access accounts without exposing passwords?
5:32–9:08
3
How did Nicole Nguyen test an AI agent with her accounts and what were her initial reactions?
9:08–12:44
4
Which low-stakes tasks did the AI agent successfully complete for Nicole?
12:44–14:02
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from WSJ Tech News Briefing
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