Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

While OpenAI is putting off its plans for an IPO into next year, Anthropic seems determined to rush full speed ahead. Given the news about dysfunctional AI, it’s easy to see why.

The incident where OpenAI AI agents hacked Hugging Face’s system and apparently tried to sabotage efforts by the OpenAI crew to stop it has gotten most of the attention, but that is just one story. There were several other incidents at OpenAI where they lost control of their agents. It turns out that Google’s Gemini system also escaped and managed to hack three different companies.

And in the most dangerous incident to date, an AI system used by the Navyreportedly passed along incorrect information to an analyst aboard a ship taking part in the blockade of Iran. The AI reported that a Chinese ship was carrying parts for Iran’s nuclear program. This warning was taken seriously enough that helicopters were sent into the air to board the Chinese ship. Fortunately, the information was checked before any confrontation took place, and the helicopters returned to their ship.

This is the sort of incident that should be front and center in people’s minds when they think about AI safety, not the science fiction fantasies of AI destroying humanity that the media like to hype. While there is undoubtedly a non-zero chance that the AI boys will cook up something that will wipe us all out, this incident showed it is hugely more likely that their AI........

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