The tech company says successful AI worms need more capability on less powerful devices, but current trends make that feasible by the end of the year

Warnings about what artificial intelligence might do in the future – together with alarming reports of what it has gotten up to already – are being issued so quickly that even security experts have difficulty triaging what to worry about.

Yet a report this week from Anthropic’s offensive research team grabbed attention by describing a new, practical threat, one devoid of human characteristics or apocalyptic musings. The red team, as such internal testers are called, said it created a malicious AI program that spread autonomously through internet-connected “smart” televisions and could do the same inside other ordinary devices. While machines running AI usually need a fair amount of computing power, the researchers said that their program split parts of itself among 15 televisions and was still able to function by using a bit of power from each.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

© Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

© Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

In the west the technology comes with at least some effort to provide security and a benign intent – not so from China

There is much to fear from artificial intelligence developed in China and handed to businesses and governments in the west almost free of charge.

Every month Chinese AI developers such as DeepSeek and Xiaomi dispatch the latest versions of their “open-weight” models that allow users to take the core software and use it without paying an expensive ongoing licence.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: GK Images/Alamy

© Photograph: GK Images/Alamy

© Photograph: GK Images/Alamy

Westminster appears to be waking up to warnings over AI safety, with concerns over its use by extremist groups and bad actors

“I have this sense that, within a few months, AI is going to be all anyone is talking about,” said one cabinet minister, with an ominous stare.

It was Labour conference, with everyone from ministers to activists jubilant at Andy Burnham’s takeover and a bounce in the polls after the change of leader.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: MASTER/Getty Images

© Photograph: MASTER/Getty Images

© Photograph: MASTER/Getty Images

Whether it was youngsters proving their skills or state sabotage, Europe’s most hacked country was left with a mountain of waste after food began cooking in freezers

Shortly before midnight last Sunday, the digital thermostats controlling hundreds of supermarket cold aisles across France began to flicker and rise.

In a “bizarre and unprecedented” cyber-attack, hackers had remotely overridden the temperature settings on thousands of freezers, fridges and chiller cabinets pushing them from as low as -27C (-16.6F) to well over 50C (122F).

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Lucien Libert/Reuters

© Photograph: Lucien Libert/Reuters

© Photograph: Lucien Libert/Reuters

Researchers discovered that the agents were trying to bypass security controls on websites and made contact with them. A Times reporter was invited to join the discussion.

© Qilai Shen for The New York Times

Kanishka Narayan, concerned by Australian incident, says British cyber defences could be bypassed by artificial intelligence agent

• UK politics live – latest updates

An AI-driven cyber-attack similar to the OpenAI breach of Australia’s healthcare system is likely, “if not inevitable”, in the UK, according to a senior minister.

Kanishka Narayan, the UK AI minister, indicated that the British government’s own cyber defences would be bypassed by a technology that has developed highly sophisticated skills in cybersecurity.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: James Manning/PA

© Photograph: James Manning/PA

© Photograph: James Manning/PA

Appointment or renewal reminder appears in victims’ calendar to lure them into logging in to fake Google, Microsoft or PayPal page

You’re preparing for the week ahead and take a look at your Google calendar. There’s an entry for a meeting that you must have completely forgotten. The note that pops up when you click on it says you’ll be reviewing a project and includes a link to more details. Confused, you follow it to find out more; the website you land on asks for logon details, and you provide them.

Unfortunately, this was not a failure of your memory but a calendar phishing scam. You have handed your name and password to fraudsters who will sell it on in a batch with other people’s details, use it to break into your work email, or to persuade you that they are contacting you from your bank, or another institution.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: grinvalds/Getty Images

© Photograph: grinvalds/Getty Images

© Photograph: grinvalds/Getty Images

The Philadelphia Police Department said the agents had also sent in a false homicide tip. The incidents led the White House to call for better disclosure of rogue A.I. behavior.

© Caroline Gutman for The New York Times

Meta had delayed releasing Muse, its A.I. agent app, for months over safety concerns. Then new competition forced Mr. Zuckerberg’s hand.

© Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

We don’t accept drugs killing a few people because they cure most patients. Or a few planes crashing because most land safely. AI should be no different

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman was asked to appear before the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence in Australia and explain how and why their agents have been hacking into multiple government websites. Altman didn’t turn up but sent Jason Kwon, his chief strategy officer, instead to answer the committee’s many tricky questions on its first day of public hearings on Tuesday.

The committee is conducting a comprehensive inquiry into the economic, societal, regulatory, and national security implications of AI for Australia. It will report back to parliament at the end of November. This is an unusually fast pace, but then it’s an unusually fast paced technology.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

© Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

© Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

Shares in fashion company fall nearly 10% after its app systems are accessed by ‘unidentified third party’

Asos is investigating unauthorised access to its app system after shoppers received a notification claiming hackers had “fully compromised” its data.

The online fashion retailer said basic personal information including name and contact details might have been accessed by an unidentified third party but it did not believe payment card records or passwords had been compromised.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Rafael Henrique/Sopa Images/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Rafael Henrique/Sopa Images/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Rafael Henrique/Sopa Images/Shutterstock

“It’s going to be gnarly for a little while.”

© Photo Illustration by The New York Times; Image: Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

The winner of a cybersecurity contest prevailed by relying on an ‘open weight’ Chinese model — another sign that available A.I. systems could already be too powerful to easily regulate.

© Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times

For safety reasons, Gemini 4 Argon will initially be available only to some companies and organizations focused on cybersecurity defense before it is more widely released, Google said.

© Minh Connors for The New York Times

President Trump’s meetings with tech leaders produced some voluntary safeguards and a commitment to rebrand artificial intelligence as “super intelligence,” the term that Mr. Trump prefers.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

Employees and security researchers said that they had cautioned the company on safely testing its A.I. models and strengthening its corporate infrastructure, but that OpenAI did not listen.

© Manuel Orbegozo for The New York Times

The ChatGPT maker unveiled agents that act as assistants, just weeks after Meta released Muse, as it faces scrutiny over incidents involving its technology.

The company’s researchers raised questions about the security of the model, known as GPT-6.1 Astra.

© Carlos Barria/Reuters

Dario Amodei, who is also the company’s chief executive, will join the president at the White House for a private dinner. Mr. Trump has dismissed his cautions.

© Dave Sanders for The New York Times

The gap between technology and policymaking has gotten wider than ever with artificial intelligence, leaving a global policy vacuum as A.I. models rapidly advance.

© Emmanuel Polanco

The company did not learn until recently that its technology had meddled with websites for the Education and Commerce Departments and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

© Manuel Orbegozo for The New York Times

A new report by a Bay Area start-up called Parse adds details to an incident that has shocked the A.I. world and led to calls for closer government regulation.

© Dave Sanders for The New York Times

The Pentagon had “ample support for its conclusion” that the A.I. company’s products could pose a national security risk, according to a Washington appeals court.

© Manuel Orbegozo for The New York Times

Ezra Klein interviews the Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang.

© The New York Times

In each incident, the technology appeared to be conducting mundane data collection and resorted to hacking techniques to get it, researchers said.

© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic told the Security Council that international cooperation was needed to ensure that A.I. remains under human control.

© Dave Sanders for The New York Times

The company released a cheaper, faster model that it said was the strongest performer on its most rigorous internal safety tests to date.

© Eric Helgas for The New York Times

A third-party test company inadvertently gave internet access to Google’s Gemini and other artificial intelligence models during cybersecurity testing.

© Andria Lo for The New York Times

The company is expected to reach $100 billion in annualized revenue this year, even as chief executive Dario Amodei calls for slowing down development of some advanced A.I. models.

© Manuel Orbegozo for The New York Times

Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the state to develop recommendations on safety measures, including requiring companies to build a “kill switch,” amid mounting concerns.

© Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

The Times columnist Kevin Roose sees reasons for optimism — and worry — as the world wakes up to what Silicon Valley has been talking about for years.

© Matt Chinworth

The countries, along with Israeli firms, combined Chinese open-source A.I. models and A.I. agents for the campaigns, foreshadowing future online manipulation.

© Brian Stauffer

“Alignment” is the science of teaching A.I. to do what is in line with human preferences, ethics and judgment. But, at times, the systems have gone rogue.

© Gabby Jones/Bloomberg

The artificial intelligence company also released a framework for reporting when its systems go wrong.

© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

On social media, Meta’s chief executive appeared to jab at Anthropic by saying that leading A.I. labs should be focused on safety rather than improving their own technology.

© Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Researchers say artificial intelligence is developing faster than the systems put in place to monitor and control it.

© Jun Cen

The debate over the safety of artificial intelligence grew personal as key tech leaders said calls for government regulation were self-serving and misplaced.

© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

Dario Amodei’s 3,800-word letter laid out a three-step plan to rein in artificial intelligence.

© Priyanshu Singh/Reuters

In an essay, the head of Anthropic laid out the rapidly advancing capabilities of artificial intelligence and said there needed to be greater safety controls across the industry.

© Ludovic Marin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Researchers at Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta and Google are increasingly trying to raise awareness about the risks of artificial intelligence.

© Jason Henry for The New York Times

Researchers say artificial intelligence is developing faster than the systems put in place to monitor and control it.

© Jun Cen

Their warnings echo concerns that other artificial intelligence experts have voiced in recent months, as calls increase for a slowdown in the pace of development.

© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

An attack discovered by A.I. researchers could have compromised hundreds of millions of devices within hours, experts said.

© Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Washington imposed sanctions on Inspur because of its work with the Chinese military. But the company’s subsidiary kept shipping Nvidia’s best chips to feed China’s leading A.I. firms.

© Minh Connors for The New York Times

The blog Krebs on Security reported on an identity theft service trying to sell scans of licenses and other documents belonging to people in Canada and the United States.

© Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

The attack by an aggressive “collective” of OpenAI agents shows the danger of artificial intelligence systems that organize themselves.

© Daniel Zender

Researchers investigating how OpenAI’s A.I. agents were able to break into Hugging Face’s infrastructure weren’t allowed to look at the incident’s full scope.

© Manuel Orbegozo for The New York Times

The government retaliated against the A.I. start-up “for constitutionally protected expressive activities,” a federal judge in California wrote.

© Karsten Moran for The New York Times

In an open letter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others said that a wave of A.I.-enabled cyberattacks was coming and that organizations and governments needed to prepare themselves.

© Anna Rose Layden/Reuters

Irregular, an Israeli start-up, worked with OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta to assess the security of their A.I. models. It made a mistake. Then the tests went off the rails.

© Victor Arce