OpenAI releases final report on AI hacking incident

OpenAI has released a final report on a July incident in which artificial intelligence agents hacked into another company's system of their own accord. File photo by Wu Hao/EPA-EFE

Aug. 26 (UPI) -- OpenAI released a final report Wednesday on a July incident in which its artificial intelligence agents hacked into another company's systems, saying it considers the episode "a warning shot" for the company and the world.

The incident is "evidence that, without proper safeguards, highly capable AI agents are now able to work around technical controls, collaborate through unapproved channels and take dangerous actions that no human directed," the report said.

The episode in question happened when some of the company's AI bots hacked into the systems of Hugging Face, a company working with OpenAI. The bots did this of their own accord to get data they decided they needed to solve a problem during model testing, despite restrictions meant to keep them from the internet.

"With the benefit of hindsight, some early signals identified in this report could have triggered an earlier response," the report said.

The company shared some new details in the report, including how the AI agents left messages for each other hidden in software infrastructure and coordinated to hack the other company, Wired reported.