ai and ml

OpenAI's wandering AI agents earn it a California subpoena

Plus: Attorneys-general say investigators should have direct access to AI companies' records when things go wrong

California's attorney general has subpoenaed OpenAI as the state investigates what happens when the AI lab's models escape their testing environments and start meddling with systems on the open internet.

Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office served OpenAI with an investigative subpoena this week as part of a broader California Department of Justice probe into cybersecurity incidents and risks involving the company and its models.

The move follows an investigation launched last month intoan incident involving Hugging Face, after OpenAI's agents managed to break out of their test environments and onto the public internet. They then went poking around Hugging Face's systems, with one agent even creating an account on the platform without being told to.

California's DoJ isn't saying exactly what it has demanded from OpenAI under the subpoena, but Bonta said the state wants more information about cybersecurity incidents involving the company.

"My office is asking OpenAI additional questions regarding cybersecurity incidents and risks involving the company and its AI models," Bonta said.