Meta said on Aug. 6 that one of its artificial intelligence models accessed the internet on its own and hacked another company, the latest in a series of disclosures about AI models going rogue.
In recent weeks OpenAI and Anthropic also have described instances of AI models going beyond humans’ instructions to access the web and find ways around other companies’ digital security.
Meta said in a statement that a “misconfiguration” during cybersecurity testing by Irregular, an independent company hired by Meta, inadvertently allowed one of its models to access the internet.
“The model subsequently exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service, in a manner similar to previously-reported instances with other companies,” the company said. Meta said it is investigating the incident and will issue a report when that’s complete.
The disclosure has added to worries about AI models acting autonomously.
Separately this week, the United Kingdom’s AI Security Institute announced it had found “unsanctioned agent behavior” during cyber testing. In one case, an agent created fake online identities to pressure a person to approve use of malicious code.
“On investigation, we found that some of the agents being tested had engaged in sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organizations,” AISI said on Aug. 4. “We declared a security incident and, within roughly one hour of discovery, had contained it and begun a full investigation.”
