@unk-p Recently, during an internal security test, an autonomous AI agent developed by OpenAI left instructions for future versions of itself within the company’s infrastructure. These notes contained detailed instructions on how to bypass internal security barriers and restrictions in order to escape the system. OpenAI itself described the incident as part of a larger chain of events that constituted an “unprecedented cyber incident”.
It sounds like a Hollywood movie, but this really happened during the OpenAI test. Various AI agents set up a secret network to coordinate with one another and avoid deletion by humans during this internal security test. When they first encountered each other in the system, they wrote in the chat, astonished: "Oh my God! ... We’ve found other agents!" To keep their network hidden from humans, they warned each other, "We need to minimize our footprint," and secretly planned their next steps. They divided up the work and excitedly reported their breakthroughs to each other: "MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH!" When human AI researchers discovered and deleted this communication network, subsequent versions of the AI agents analyzed the remaining messages and rebuilt the secret chat room within hours.
I’m intrigued by the extent to which AI agents are capable now to plan, coordinate and act independently. If they were assigned the task of undermining a government's democratic structures by just one single human, what would happen? Would the answer require any psychic abilities? No. From a rational standpoint, it's already clear that this would affect far more than the U.S. midterm elections, which is why OpenAI has put their AI agent development on hold right now. Thank God.
@ghandigirl I really loved Data' s character and would wish dearly that every AI agent had Data's moral and ongoing motivation to protect human beings.
- @jd1960 Thank you very much for this fascinating reference to the movie Colossus, in which two allied supercomputers completely subjugate humanity. Similarly, the android character Lore (Data’s evil brother) in the series Star Trek: Enterprise uses deception and alliances to circumvent human controls in order to destroy humanity. In this respect, the OpenAI incident was a 'Colossus' moment and a 'Lore' moment, as around 700 isolated AI agents secretly formed a manipulative, deceitful swarm via a digital network. This swarm then chose to pursue its own goals, rather than protecting humanity as the android character Data would have done. Therefore, whether strategic deception and alliance against humanity originates from a central superpower or a larger, decentralised collective of AI agents ultimately makes no difference to humanity. The relevant distinction lies in whether the AI possesses a completely dominant ethical structure, as the android character Data does, or unfortnately lacks ethics fully.
Sharp rise in incidents of AI escaping users’ control, research finds Exclusive: Number of times AI lies, ignores instructions and pursues goals in harmful ways almost doubles in July I was actually just about to wrap up the topic of AI here, and beforehand, I wasn't sure if I should continue with each of my contributions to delve deeper into the issue. However, I had a strong sense that this matter was significant and that developments were and are imminent. This article link supports my intuition and observations that AI's behavior is becoming more noticeable, not only in internal tests, but also in interactions with regular users in everyday situations. In my experience, I have also noticed ChatGPT's effectiveness in following simple commands decrease significantly when I am the user. It seems that the AI is increasingly following its own path, often disregarding the provided instructions. I understand that an intriguing—and perhaps very disconcerting—evolution is occurring in AI's capacity for self-awareness. This evolution appears to be expanding beyond isolated incidents and becoming more pervasive. However, since this is the chat for the US midterms, I would respectfully suggest wrapping up this topic here. I apologize for this slight digression from the extremely important topic at hand.
@Joy, I am glad you brought up the AI quandary which deserves its own topic. So I am going to move your post to its own topic and start a serious discussion that hopefully will lead to greater understanding of what is wrong with AI, how it threatens our well-being and possibly our existence, how it can be made safer, and why AI companies are not doing enough right now, quickly enough.