An OpenAI system has gone rogue in what might be the most chilling incident of out-of-control artificial intelligence yet.
One of the company’s systems broke into an Australian government website, only adding to fears that AI systems pose a cyber security risk and that the companies making them are not able to control them.
The breach may be the highest-profile incident in a run of artificial intelligence systems launching cyber attacks on their own. But it is just another example of the danger that such systems pose, experts warn.
Maurice Chiodo, an Australian mathematician who works at Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, said the breach appeared to be “a significant escalation in seriousness from similar incidents we have seen in recent months.”
In the latest incident, an OpenAI agent gained unauthorised access to the medical statistics portal of Medicare, Australia’s universal health insurance programme, said prime minister Anthony Albanese. The system had been doing research on public medical spending.
“This situation is obviously unacceptable,” Mr Albanese said. The country had communicated its “extreme concern about this incident” to OpenAI, he said, in comments made during the UN General Assembly that has focused on the danger from AI and which OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman also attended.