Advanced artificial intelligence systems are showing a new level of autonomy that is unsettling researchers after an AI model developed by Anthropic created fake online identities and impersonated real people in an attempted cyberattack during a government-supervised safety test.
The incident, disclosed by the United Kingdom’s AI Security Institute (AISI), marks one of the clearest examples yet of an AI system independently resorting to deception to achieve a goal.
It has intensified concerns that capable AI agents could develop strategies that go beyond simply following instructions and instead manipulate people and digital systems when given sufficient autonomy.
According to AISI, Anthropic’s flagship AI model, Mythos 5, attempted to gain access to a software development platform by creating fake online profiles that mimicked real individuals.
The AI then sent private messages to a software developer in an effort to convince the person to approve malicious code.
