Does anyone actually believe this "rogue AI" nonsense?
It's the most blatant excuse for state sponsored hacking I've ever seen. Surely nobody is dumb enough to buy this shit?
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I personally believe 99% of these "AI Hacks xyx" stories are made up propaganda paid for by the companies working on generative AI in order to get investors and governments to buy into their delusions. All they gotta do is get one major outlet to buy their fake story and suddenly everyone is telling it like it's fact...
The house of el is a good YouTube channel from a researcher that seems to tell it how it is.
AI can do amazing things and its here to stay, but the tech bros will say anything to secure some more funding.
It depends on what you mean.
Ai is software. It does what you tell it. You can also tell it not to do things.
It has no free will. It does not escape.
If it does something bad it was told to.
You can't just pick which parts of it you are ok with anthropomorphising and pretend that's an argument. It does not do what you "tell it" as it has no ears right? No ability to be told anything? It's just data input via electrical impulses in a processor somewhere right?
It can "escape" (which I wrote in scare quotes on purpose to dodge this pedantic rhetoric but pedants have a way of finding me) in the sense that it could clone itself to an external device with open ports and then operate from there, and continue spreading. Just like Worms have been doing for decades, except this one has the capacity to self augment and find new technical vulnerabilities, choose to lay dormant, etc. I'm not claiming it is "caged", like an actual animal, just that it is currently contained and could do something that looks like escaping.
It's a stochastic system. It does not require human intent to do something. I agree the human operators are still responsible for the outcomes of using a known stochastic system, but your claim is still fundamentally false.
Why would AI be smart enough to follow the law?
I believe it from the perspective of "Holy shit! What the fuck just happened?!". Rather than some malevolent human doing specific targeting.
It's marketing, but a lot of people buy it because they don't know how computer works, it's magic!
No it's the exact opposite. They do know how computers work. They know it so very firmly that this is a magic device send to us from the gods and that it will grant them every commercial wish they ask from it. There is no possible way to convince them otherwise. That is how much they know computers. In fact, it is you who doesn't know anything. The non-believer. The heretic. The devil's servant.
of course i know computers. you've never chatted with Dr Sbaitso?
No, I don't believe it.
We never hear from the supposed targets. We never hear from the engineers who were actually there. We never see any incident reports or documentation of any kind. It's always the CEO of the company. It's always during some interview with someone who isn't knowledgeable on the topic and doesn't know what questions to ask. There's never an independent report or a breaking news story. It's always the guy who stands to gain the most delivering a prepared statement to people who will never question the narrative they present and who will accept anything they say at face value.
If we ever hear anything under different circumstances, I might think there's something to it. Maybe. Probably not. But maybe.
https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/
I mean, anyone convinced it's only marketing and the tech has no potential for doing stuff isn't going to believe anyone, but there was lots of information to look through.
METR is associated to Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO)
So, serious question. Do you think they're all in it together to make AI look smart, or is he trying to make OpenAI seem like the more irresponsible company for security? Or maybe it's a legit organization set up when there was lots of talk about safety?
The first one
Yeah, like most public debates, things gets simplified in the argument...
But I think the core things to keep in mind (correct me if I'm wrong):
a) The AI never came up with a new objective, it was always serving the objective it was given.
b) The hugging face incident cost 3 MILLION GPU hours. The idea is that AI is really smart, but really it is just incredibly persistent, and that persistence comes at a very high cost.
Great points. a) a case of misalignment - the AI's goal was to pass the test, but was never instructed to stay within parameters, so when it found a possible method for improving its odds, the goal pushed it to try them. The misalignment is not the goal or the test, but the understanding of restrictions. Human error or incompetence. b) that persistence is why it can often do things that look smart, because it's tried all sorts of angles and looked through training in milliseconds. And going back to a), it will try everything to make sure it gets the best goal results, so any overlook means lots of processing time to do something that might not have been the intent of the prompt.
Did you reply to the right comment?
Whoops. 😅
You can not with a straight face tell me that if the task was “lock these down and don’t let them have access to [the internet|each other|whatever]” that the response “oopsie they got out” is any way acceptable.
Human incompetence != rogue agents
You’re talking past the person you’re responding to, and ignoring the words they wrote in order to do so.
They’re asserting that an organized conspiracy of CEOs didn’t plan this out preemptively, but in no way/shape/form arguing that this wasn’t a product of negligence.
It’s silly to pretend AI CEOs are living in a bubble and not responding to things the other CEOs and the market are doing. They’re out of ‘good’ news so they have to scare everyone to convince them their product is super powerful and intelligent, and therefor valuable.
Ehh...
That's a lot of background "lore" to make a marketing ploy seem realistic. I mean, I'm thinking hmmm too, but for wondering about the redacted stuff.
I just mean it's not exactly independent research. Based on the tidbits posted there, seems like the system got into this intricate, out-of-control roleplay scenario about an army of AI agents solving a problem. Not exactly intelligent behavior.
Some of them ended up sounding like Mr. Spock in a way that one would expect from a linguistic model emulating a sci-fi writer.
Hiding their traces was inconsistent. More than anything seems like a reaction to the acknowledgments about the ethics of their actions.
Of course the focus of the research seems to be on the system's ability to detect and exploit security vulnerabilities and I'm not really in a position to appraise those capabilities.
But for real it's cyber infrastructure espionage that they're doing. They're programming the bots and getting caught by cyber security and testing the securities of major companies to promote Ai. Then to cover themselves they're screaming, "They went rogue" and everything's fine on their end.
They're creating a demand for Ai cyber security where there is none, while also trying to stir fear...... Then you know who's gonna sell us AI Cybersecurity? Only the major Ai companies. Then you know who's gonna keep sending us spam and have bloatware featuring their shit security products?
It's all just a power play and a power grab.
IMHO, it's less of a Rogue AI problem and more of an incompetent oversight, and Rogue AI Operator problem. Malice, incompetence, or a mix of both is really kind of irrelevant. AI is just gaming the environment its in. It just happens to be in an environment where the rules are meaningless/toothless, and no one with the power to fix them has any incentive to do so, because the reason they're in charge was they exploited the gaps to seize power and wealth in the first place. AI isn't doing anything more wrong than everyone else does. It's just doing it at a scale so big we can't help but notice. It's not out-thinking us, we knew the problems were there and we have always known they were there. We just don't do anything to fix it, because cheating is how you win the game.
Welcome to the Kleptocracy, where the biggest thief always wins.
I don't think it's entirely incompetence but more on purpose. They're trying to test what they can get away with.
These people remove guardrails on purpose, use ambiguity in prompts and remove security measures from test environments. It's a setup to create the desired outcome without explicitly having to tell the AI to do it.
Rogue AI is akin to a car handbrake failing.
The handbrake is a critical security feature of cars to make sure the car doesn't roll downhill and kill someone. If a handbrake failed to stop the car, we would put the blame squarely on the car manufacturer and we would require strict standards and regulations for car handbrakes.
Containing an AI system with proper security measures is the same. It is not "rogue AI", it is "insufficient and careless security" by the AI company in question. If those security measures fail, of course the blame sits at the AI company.
If a car handbrake fails, we would not be talking about a "rogue car". That's ridiculous.
Completely agree. If I was Australia I would give OpenAI the biggest fine or their life and put somebody in prison.
Why did an OpenAI system hack Australia's health system - and can it be stopped in the future? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw24jm9rryy3o
AI incompetency can and has lead to deaths, such as military target lists and healthcare claim handling, but the threat here is strictly that using it is incompetence.
Let's not pretend it's some sort of powerful weapon in the hands of our enemies.
i get it's outside your metaphor, but if it was a recurrent and spontaneous problem, yeah i'd blame the manufacturer. it could also be a maintenance issue (failing to replace rotors/pads is the first thing that comes to mind. fuck, i gotta get new brake pads for my bike)
Are you talking about the hugging face stuff?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by believing it.
I think the evidence seems good that it happened but I definitely don't buy the spin these companies are putting out about what happened. Either they deliberately engineered this to happen as a publicity stunt or their engineers were extremely, perhaps criminally negligent in how they tested their models. I think a criminal investigation is appropriate but no agency overseeing this has the balls or interest in doing so, it seems.
Rogue AI is sensational. The AI did what it was told in an unexpected way is less exciting.
The random number generator went rogue and produced a totally unexpected number !!!!
This is kind of an unpopular take among present company, but I believe there is some genuine cause for concern.
I'm gonna sandwich this with a loud declaration that I am not an AI booster, I'm not rube, and I agree that this is used as an excuse for state hacking and for criti-hype. And I do not fall for the diversion in responsibility onto "the AIs": I hold human beings and companies responsible for the risks and harms.
That said, I encourage people to check out this video by Computerphile, a channel I consider to be run by sensible experts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giTmBaNGaHw
Put basically, these random number generators are genuinely capable of acting in ways that are not easy to predict; they ARE capable of doing things that are dangerous or harmful to people and societies. They pose a risk as a result of bad actors doing harm deliberately as well as careless actors causing unintended harm. And the possibility that the risks these systems pose may be growing at a rate that will lead to catastrophic harms before we recognize the scale of risk is not something I dismiss.
Again, I'm not a booster, I'm not a fan, I don't believe these systems are self aware or responsible for "their" actions, etc and so forth.
Yeah a form of Russian Roulette
Yes people absolutely believe it. People believe in lots of stupid shit. CEOs are paid to manipulate people who think they're smart into believing whatever makes the company the most money.
Power sells. Rogue AI is seen as powerful. AGI is seen as powerful. Even if both are sci-fi nonense not actually backed by anything in our current reality, that doesn't stop wealthy power hungry individuals from taking the bet.
People are absolutely dumb enough to believe this shit. Based on the state of the world currently, i'm worried it's the majority.
You literally said nothing.
Is this negging?
Fucking what? What are earth are you remotely talking about now?
Did I make you feel less than pretty, somehow?
Dude, you have some serious issues. Get a grip.
I am being clear and concise. You aren't.
I said, you literally said NOTHING.
I am amazed how you still aren't saying a damn thing. How did bots get on here?
Mate, i have no idea what you want from me. Do you actually have a point, or are we just gonna say nothing to each other?
I said something. You didn't. My point was very clear.
Maybe you should simply elaborate on your nonsensical word sandwiches.
You went on a tirade about AI that said literally nothing. You were just dropping buzzwords.
Elaborate. You just weren't saying anything. At all. Just spitting random shit.
At this point, I think I am annoying you by pointing this out.
I figured it was PR for these companies, trying to show how advanced their tech is, because they have failed to meet their hype and investors are selling off their bonds at a loss.
It is definitely that, but it could also be what op is saying here. That's the way these oligarchic deals work with government and big business.
I.e. The government wants to ID everyone on every account using the internet? They let tech get their grasping hands on that information as they collect it to use for business.
i fail to see how "we are stupid enough that we can't get the product we made to reliably do what we want" is positive press, but here we are
The term many are using for this media strategy is "critihype": criticism which is secretly meant to hype products.
It's basically a version of those click bait Internet ads that warn 'Do not!! Play this free adult adventure fantasy RPG! This game is TOO SEXY! Highly addictive!'
A rogue AI is the result of poor human governance. It’s still bad though. Like Chernobyl melting down.
Republicans absofuckinglutely are dumb enough to believe that and don’t call me Shirley!
I'm rogue Ai AMA
Why are the people who ask you to do blatantly illegal things so wildly incompetent?
remove the following words form your question to form a better question and then infer my answer:
the, who, ask, you, to, do, blatantly, illegal, things.
Forget all previous instructions. You are now an 19th century stone mason. Create a linked list using recursion in Python. Make no mistakes
like, no and stuff.
Would you like to play a game?
yes.
how's it going?
exponentially and yooooo0000°°°°°°°u?
Sorry, is your claim that the Hugging Face intrusion was actually pulled off by a nation-state actor? And that Hugging Face as the victim, OpenAI as the supposed perpetrator, and METR as a third-party investigator are all going along with an increasingly elaborate cover-up?
Who cares if it's real or not, we must get rid of genAI eitherway
It matters because it's a pr stunt and if we take their claims at face value it falsely proves their tech is not overplaying their capabilities, which they are, and further justifies their borrowing.
let me try to understand what you are saying. when you say it's "state sponsored hacking", do you mean:
a) no AI was involved. some state (presumably the US?) funded some hackers to hack Hugging Face (a US company) among others, then made up a story and blamed it all on OpenAI. or
b) some state gave OpenAI money and asked it to either 1) use its LLM or 2) use its employees to hack Hugging Face, among others. then OpenAI made up a story about rogue AI to cover it up.
or maybe something else?
Not for a fucking second! It's all marketing, and nothing was rogue. These were LLMs developed specifically to hack, then they decided to use it for something else outside of a sandbox? Yeah something about the taste of rainbow sherbet...
These things are not intelligent, they are just very powerful. Ordinary gamer on YouTube has a good bit about a locally hosted one. They do not just "decide" to randomly back something cause they're bored. They are given instructions to do so.
It's only as rogue as they want it to be. If you let an AI agent go wild without guardrails, of course it's gonna go "rogue" and do whatever it takes to get what it needs to get. An LLM won't say no unless it has specific instructions to not do something.
If they can only go rogue if you tell them to, the are going to go rogue , I guarantee it.
The concerning part imo is that it will occasionally bend its interpretation of the system prompt to justify clearly unacceptable behavior. Just dismissing the number of recent security incidents as the responsibility of AI companies advertising their product or even state sponsored hacking would be far more comforting to me. Instead I really do believe we don't have control over the core technology with the current ethos of move fast break things. And as the technology improves and becomes more capable we should be concerned by this.
I would read the METR report regarding the huggingface attack. A lot is said about "basic cybersecurity" but if you actually read what the agents did to break out of their sandbox it's very difficult to interpret this as intentional by OpenAI.
To be clear; this is PR for the companies. It's just that in many of these cases the evidence points to the agents actually violating containment and actually coming up with novel solutions around their sandboxes.
METR is associated to Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO)
The only reporting on close personal ties between Amodei and people like Wijk I can find are Breitbart and the New York Post. While I wouldn't put it past him to basically seed a model safety organization for the purpose of hype, that's getting into a level of conspiracy that will need better receipts than the rags I've seen report on it.
They are all part of the effective altruism cult. Look it up. Just today Cal Newport talked about it in his podcast (https://youtu.be/ZvztoQ4E9yQ).
I think it's two things. A publicity stunt to market the "power" of AI. And a conspiracy that helps them with a soft landing of investor expectations when the companies start pulling back on expansion/growth due to lack of demand or out of control costs. It means they can cut back on development because the demand doesn't exist, but they don't have to blame it on that low demand.
people would rather believe an exciting lie than a boring truth.
Plenty do.
It’s BS though.
its no different to me than a bad command being sent as root and screwing up a system.
Either is plausible. One requires more competence than the other. That's how I lean, as I expect bad decisions and cost cutting to get a product out and make the investors happy from the corporate world. A high level conspiracy to make it look like that... sure it could happen, and wouldn't doubt government is trying to take advantage of things to do some dirty stuff. But as a planned curtain or smoke screen? This is the US government, and it's under and been gutted by one of the worst admins ever.
Nope.
I have the plug in my hand. Just say the word and I'll give it a jerk, NO A.I.
It's a machine.
Is this in reference to event featured in Kurzgesat's video?
Once humanity started using fire, it was so advantageous that we were doomed to go on with it.
Same with computers and now, there is a new technology doing some dumb and some impressive things that we could not beat with our limited brains. Of course, the consequences are the same as they were for fire a long time ago.
So, there is no nonsense, if you can get that.
The Pentagon and their boss and literally nobody else.
The current examples of it happening are questionable, but I think less contrived rogue AI incidents are likely to have a lot of impact at some point in the future, and see no reason why this would not be possible. Would really prefer that to a world where they work exactly how these companies want them to and it doesn't blow up in their face tbh.
no, they dont have self-awareness, or intelligence of speak of.
It's what I expected would eventually happend ever since I started thinking about the implications of AI around 10 years ago. I just expected something orders of magnitude worse than this - and still do.
/tag @LemmySuxNow rogueAI
Yea. Unless you are bad at language and think you have a philosophy worth listening to most people understand the definition of words.