OpenAI says we're running out of time to act on cyber defense. Here's what you can actually do about it.

This week brought another warning from tech leaders about the growing threat of AI cyber attacks — and I am once again asking what I, a regular person, am supposed to do about it.

OpenAI published an open letter on Thursday, joined by over 100 organizations, warning that the window to shore up cyber defenses was quickly closing as AI-enabled attacks become more sophisticated and widespread.

AI and tech leaders have warned about the growing capabilities of large language models so often that the warnings themselves have become a bit of a meme: In July, OpenAI said its models escaped a test environment and hacked into Hugging Face. A week later, Anthropic said its models had hacked not one but three different companies, prompting some to question how much the warnings were about hyping up their product.

Rather than a company warning about its own models' capabilities, this letter was different — it was a pointed, collective warning calling on all organizations, tech companies, and governments globally to prioritize cyber defense.

"I don't think they're coming out to do marketing," Kevin Powers, faculty director for cybersecurity, risk and governance at Boston College Law School, said. "I think they're really concerned."