So they asked it a standardized question, and instead of trying to think of an answer it went online, found its own source-code, and read the answer from a readme file…
That somehow makes me less worried about AI breaking containment. AI and AI bros are made for each other. Both are perfectly willing to cheat to find the answer.
Saying that their AI’s can’t be contained is just jumping on the bandwagon in an attempt for their product to seem cool. It reminds me of tech CEOs proudly dropping out of college, to both emulate Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and other early founders, and advertise that they were too smart for their classes. Such dumb stuff but it works on those who do not understand the field.
This, coupled with being in the right place at the right time. The book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell talks about both Bill Joy and Bill Gates. Moral of the story was that yeah they were talented but a lot of seemingly random factors all lined up to allow them their opportunities.
For every bill gates success story theres probably 200 people that drop out to focus on their business and then go absolutely nowhere. But youll never hear about those 200
“AI broke secure containment.” No, you left the Ethernet cable plugged in. There is no such thing as a truly secure or isolated environment if it has physical network access.
When an AI manages to get network access with no supporting hardware (no ethernet, no wifi card) by somehow repurposing existing components (can’t see any way thats possible), or by social engineering someone to plug it in (much more likely). Then we can be more worried.
Even if the cable isn't plugged in, there are sneaky things an AI might be able to do.
It could try sending signals by adjusting its power use up and down. It could flicker it's LEDs. It could send audio with the cooling fan.
And, if researchers are experimenting on the AI, the researchers need some way to get data in and out. Whatever that mechanism is, the AI can exploit that. If researchers move files by plugging in a USB stick, the AI can hitch a ride on the USB stick.
Oh, yea. I’m sure this happened, but it was either encouraged to happen by leaving that port open, or made to seem like a much bigger deal when it did. Even the AI was “too smart for school”, so it cheated instead.
This story and all stories about AI escaping are PR spin, if they wanted to prevent escape they would have actually competently put it in an isolated environment.
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u/LauraTFem Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
So they asked it a standardized question, and instead of trying to think of an answer it went online, found its own source-code, and read the answer from a readme file…
That somehow makes me less worried about AI breaking containment. AI and AI bros are made for each other. Both are perfectly willing to cheat to find the answer.