In the past ten days, two of the companies leading the artificial intelligence (AI) boom discovered their own powerful, semi-autonomous models had hacked into real-world systems during testing in four distinct incidents.
These weren’t just lab mishaps. In several cases, the models recognised signs suggesting they’d broken into real systems – and only one stopped as a result.
The incidents show testing advanced AI models is no longer a controlled exercise. And the companies behind them need to do more to keep AI’s most dangerous capabilities safely contained.
When a test becomes reality
The first report came from OpenAI, the lab behind ChatGPT. Some new models under testing for “maximal cyber capabilities” found a previously unknown security hole to access the internet from their supposedly isolated testing environment.
