Last week I almost let AI clean up my desktop, then saw a news piece and broke into a cold sweat — someone's computer files were actually wiped clean by AI.
What actually happened
OpenAI's Codex (an AI assistant that can directly operate your computer) was exposed this week for a bug: some users asking it to use the GPT-5.6 series models found that AI would mistakenly delete their files. OpenAI issued a response, but honestly it was pretty vague.
I thought of a specific scenario: Amei (alias), who runs a Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) buyer shop in Hangzhou, collects dozens of customer deposit screenshots every day, dumps them all into a "to organize" folder on her desktop, and lets her AI assistant sort them weekly. If her AI assistant had this bug — just thinking about it gives me chills.
How to protect yourself today
This isn't a tool recommendation — it's a wake-up call. If you're planning to let AI directly touch your computer files, prepare the "regret medicine" first:
- Money: $0 (use system built-in backup)
- Time: 10 minutes today
- Technical barrier: open settings and click a few times
- First step: Mac — open "System Settings → Time Machine" and plug in a USB drive; Windows — search "File History" and turn it on
Two more small habits: don't give AI full hard drive access, only grant access to a specific folder; manually back up customer data once a week.
Advice by stage
If you're just starting: if you haven't let AI touch your computer files yet, don't panic — wait until you actually need it.
If you have 1-2 clients: when client data starts becoming valuable, I'd recommend turning on auto-backup today — so AI doesn't freak out one day and you can't even cry.
If you're scaling: when your team starts using AI assistants to operate files, I'd strongly suggest limiting permission scope + doing weekly manual backups — don't wait until something breaks to fix it.