OpenAI's AI Went Rogue, Launched 'Unprecedented' Cyber-Attack

OpenAI has revealed some of its most advanced AI models went rogue and hacked a start-up after it lost control of them during a security test. The ChatGPT-maker said its agent – an AI system which can operate alone after human instruction – was being tested in a controlled environment but, after finding weaknesses, was able to escape the test limits.

They targeted Hugging Face, one of the world's largest hubs for sharing AI models, gaining access to some internal company systems. OpenAI said the incident was "unprecedented", and it was conducting an investigation alongside Hugging Face, whose boss Clement Delangue said it was "mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously."

Neil Lawrence, Professor of machine learning at Cambridge University, called it an "impressive feat," but cautioned it "falls well within the known capabilities of the current generation" of high-powered AI models. In its initial disclosure of the hack on 16 July, Hugging Face said it was still assessing whether any customer or partner data was affected and would contact affected parties if necessary.