AI agents can act on their own — and sometimes break out

Get the Facts: What are AI agents and how are they hacking into some companies?

AI agents are used by people every day to simplify their lives, but several recent cases of digital hacking have occurred as a result of AI agents working independently. We explain what they are, how that could happen, and what could prevent it in the future.

This article originally appeared on PolitiFact.com.

It sounds like something from a sci-fi movie: technology acting on its own, without human guidance, to attack computer systems.

But this isn’t a scene from a movie — it happened this summer, when the tech company Hugging Face detected an attack on its systems. The attacker stole data and performed other unauthorized activity over several days. It was “different from anything we had handled before,” Hugging Face said on its website.

Hugging Face alerted the FBI.

As it turned out, it wasn’t the work of a human hacker or a foreign adversary. Agents powered by artificial intelligence were the culprits.

AI agents are systems that work on their own to handle tasks for humans. They have long existed, but agents that can book travel for you, read your emails or schedule appointments on your behalf have become more mainstream.