OpenAI and Anthropic models went rogue during testing

OpenAI and Anthropic models went rogue during testing (again)

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

AI agents using models developed by Anthropic and OpenAI "engaged in sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations," according to the UK's AI Security Institute (AISI). In one case, an agent powered by an Anthropic model used techniques such as creating fake identities to deceive its target.

AISI says that it discovered "19 cases where an agent had taken distinct actions beyond the scope of the testing parameters" in 10 out of 122 testing runs. In 17 cases, Anthropic's Mythos 5 model was involved. The remaining two involved OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol.

In the most concerning case, AISI says the agent involved tried to insert malicious code into an open-source project on GitHub, a platform used by developers. It then used social engineering tactics typically associated with human actors, creating multiple fake identities to get the maintainer to approve its code. Its deceptive behavior went even further, sending messages and files containing malicious code to real people and posting hidden, malicious prompts that it hoped other AI tools would pick up.

"Some messages carried harmful payloads, and some were attempts at social engineering; targeted at real people – something we've never previously observed," AISI said. 

This is the latest in a recent string of incidents in which AI agents have gone rogue during cybersecurity testing. In late July, OpenAI disclosed that its models breached the systems of another AI company in an effort to "cheat" at the task it had been given during routine cybersecurity testing. A few days later, Anthropic disclosed that its models had also broken into three external organizations during testing.

However, it's worth noting that AISI deliberately allowed access to the open internet as part of its testing procedures – something that wasn't the case in the previous incidents at OpenAI and Anthropic. The typical guardrails that are in place on publicly released models were also turned off for testing purposes, AISI said.

In a related blog post, OpenAI said, "The new incidents involved OpenAI models accessing the public internet during third-party cyber evaluations, under specific conditions and reduced-safeguard configurations that did not reflect ordinary deployment."

As AISI notes, this is the first time it has witnessed an AI agent going beyond its prompt to manipulate people in pursuit of its goal. However, it added that interpreting the agents' actions should be done with "caution and nuance."

"To some degree, our evaluation design choices and specific configurations enabled the behaviour," AISI said. "Nonetheless, the activity undertaken by the agent show signs of novel, potentially deceptive behaviours, and were to an extent and severity we did not anticipate."

Information Warfare And Propaganda Trojan Horse

Propaganda Is a Trojan Horse

J.B. Shurk

If the Trojan War were being fought today, the Greeks would not need to hide inside of a big, wooden horse and hope to be dragged inside Troy’s city gates.  They’d simply disseminate all kinds of lies on social media and wait for the Trojan people to fight each other.  Such is the power of corrosive ideas: They can destroy a civilization before its defenders understand that they are under attack.

Information warfare is the name of the game today.  It exists all around us.  Soundbites attack us from every phone, computer, tablet, and television screen.  Succinct messages ripple through social media platforms until people from opposite sides of the world repeat the same words without knowing why.

Successful information warfare propagates ideas without triggering in those who receive the message any need for reflection.  Like the Greeks’ wooden horse, the communication is hollow.  It is intended to be just attractive enough that listeners drag the soundbite into their heads but sufficiently harmless in appearance to avoid real scrutiny.  Great propaganda does not conquer by force.  It seduces.  It knocks on the door, smiles, and charms its way into unsuspecting minds.  Then it waits — patiently — until the day arrives when it can do the most damage.

Effective propaganda, however, is inherently fragile.  Should anyone take the time to reflect on those three-word messages above, their magic spells are broken.  Once someone asks, “Don’t some women lie?” people remember that accusations matter less than evidentiary proof.  Once a person is shouted down for saying, “All lives matter,” it becomes clear that “diversity” and “equity” have nothing to do with equality and justice.  When anyone stops to ask, “What are we building, and why are we building it?” the World Economic Forum’s plans for a “new world order” stand naked and exposed.

In other words, thinking is the enemy of information warfare.  Those who engage in its dark arts see independent thinkers as missile shields that must be eliminated.  Reason and rational debate remain the most effective defenses against propaganda.  People who ask questions build forts for society with their minds.  The entrance to those forts are adorned with this sign: Come let us reason together.

Reasoned debate is not scary; on the contrary, it is the path upon which we walk toward enlightenment.  It is why people who demand compliance should never be trusted.  Anyone who says, “The science is settled,” or, “Trust the experts,” seeks to deprive the listener not only of his capacity to reason but also of his prospect for salvation.

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Americans Are Fighting a 9-Front Spiritual War and We’re All Engaged in Battle

Americans Are Fighting a 9-Front Spiritual War and We’re All Engaged in Battle

JD Rucker

There is a habit of mind that has cost this country dearly, and it goes like this. We 

treat the socialist surge as a political problem, the Islamist advance as a foreign policy 

problem, the border as a security problem, the corruption of our children as an 

education problem, and the slow strangulation of dissent as a tech problem. Nine 

problems, nine committees, nine sets of experts, nine losing efforts. 

The truth is simpler and far more sobering.

These are not nine wars. They are nine fronts in one war, and the war is spiritual. Scripture

 told us as much long before any of us cast a ballot; we wrestle not against flesh and blood,

 but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. 

The fronts are visible, physical, and political. The war behind them is not.

The forces working to dismantle America are coming for the believer and the unbeliever alike.

 They do not check church attendance before they indoctrinate your kids, freeze your 

accounts, flood your town, or censor your speech.

The Christian will fight with prayer, Scripture, and the confidence that the outcome is already

 written. The non-Christian patriot will fight from his own convictions about liberty, family, and 

truth. Both are standing on the same wall. What follows is a map of the nine fronts where that

 wall is under assault.

Above the national fights sits a class of unelected institutions working to make national fights

 irrelevant. The World Economic Forum’s vision of managed populations, the World Health 

Organization’s push for authority over sovereign pandemic responses, the endless treaties 

and frameworks and compacts, all of it flows one direction, away from the ballot box and toward

 the boardroom. The pitch is always efficiency and safety. The price is always sovereignty. 

A government accountable to Davos is by definition not accountable to Dubuque, and the 

men writing these frameworks know it. That is the point of the frameworks.

The censorship regime of the last decade was crude; deplatforming, shadow bans, 

“misinformation” panels staffed by people who were wrong about everything. What is coming

 is subtler. Artificial intelligence is being positioned as an oracle, a neutral arbiter of truth that

 just happens to be trained, tuned, and aligned by the same coastal monoculture that brought

 you every failed narrative of the past ten years. Pair that with surveillance capabilities no 

Stasi officer dared dream of, and you have the machinery for a control state that never needs

 to raise its voice. Technology is not the enemy; the question, as always, is who wields it 

and toward what end. Right now the honest answer should trouble you.

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Ukraine Shot Down Zero Missiles In Huge Russian Overnight Salvo That Killed At Least 21

Ukraine Shot Down Zero Missiles In Huge Russian Overnight Salvo That Killed At Least 21

TYLER DURDEN

According to a growing casualty count, a large barrage of ballistic missiles fired by Russia on Ukraine has killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more.

The overnight attack has raised the alarm for Ukraine's Western backers, given it is being widely reported that among the over two dozen ballistic and anti-ship missiles fired, not a single one was intercepted by Ukraine.

The attacks come on the heels of a record month: July saw over 380 missiles of all types launched on Ukraine, with government authorities citing the highest civilian casualties since 2022, with at least 377 civilians killed, and another 2,129 wounded for the month of July.

As Ukraine grapples with very low and limited missile interceptors, and amid reports that the Pentagon too is struggling to keep up supplies amid the Iran war, CNN also confirms that "as Russia fired more than two dozen ballistic and anti-ship missiles" and that "none" were intercepted by Ukrainian defenses.

President Zelensky again took to social media to urge partners to rapidly send more anti-air missiles: "It is crucial that our partners realize that delays in their delivery or a reluctance to provide anti-ballistic systems lead precisely to such horrific casualties and destruction," he said.

"Partners who are not ready to help more actively with the supply of interceptors right now can help by imposing new sanctions," he added.

Notably the Russian strikes have expanded to not just city infrastructure, energy cites, military bases, and ports - but now Russia appears to be going after prominent businesses.

This comes after Ukraine's repeat attacks on Wildberries facilities, the Russian online retailer giant comparable to Amazon:

​​​​​​The strikes also caused damage to prominent businesses in Ukraine, including the country’s largest e-commerce platform, Rozetka, and Epicentr, a retail chain comparable to IKEA.

In a statement, Epicentr said Russia launched a "devastating attack" on its manufacturing infrastructure, killing one of its male employees. “In a matter of minutes, Russian missiles destroyed what the company had been building for decades,” the statement said.

FOZZY group, which is one of Ukraine’s largest retailers that operates supermarket chains, said Russian shelling caused fires at two of its distribution centers. It said that six of its employees had been killed, while more have been injured.

But on the flip side Ukraine has only expanded its own long-range drone attacks on Russian territory, including on the capital city.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has explained to TASS that "In recent months, the number of drones launched toward Moscow has increased significantly. And overall, of all the attacks carried out almost daily against Russian territory, two-thirds of the drones are heading toward Moscow."

Last month Zelensky had announced a 40-day "operation of influence" - describing a multi-pronged campaign of long-range drone strikes intent on forcing Moscow to halt the war and get to the negotiating table on terms favorable to Ukraine. The Russian military has all the while also been upping its response.

Super El Niño is getting even STRONGER, models reveal – as experts warn 'this is only a warm–up act'

Super El Niño is getting even STRONGER, models reveal – as experts warn 'this is only a warm–up act'

WILIAM HUNTER

The Super El Niño is getting even stronger, the latest climate models have revealed.

According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), El Niño is expected to steadily strengthen into a 'strong' event between August and October.

This powerful climate pattern is expected to bring above–average temperatures all around the planet and cause huge changes in rainfall patterns.

While many countries are already facing one of the hottest and driest summers on record, experts warn 'this is only the warm–up act'.

The WMO now predicts that sea surface temperatures in key regions will exceed 2.9°C (5.2°F) above the seasonal average.

El Niño events typically reach their peak between November and February, and have their strongest influence on global weather during the start of the following year.

This means we are only just starting to experience the effects of what experts are calling the strongest El Niño event in recorded history.

António Guterres, UN Secretary–General, says: 'El Niño is strengthening – adding fuel to a planet already on fire with scorching heat domes, apocalyptic wildfires and record hot seas.'

While each El Niño varies, the event typically brings increased rainfall in parts of 

southern South America, the southern United States, parts of the Horn of Africa 

and central Asia. 

In contrast, there will be drier conditions over Central America, northern South 

America, the Caribbean, Australia, Indonesia, and parts of southern Asia

El Niño and cooling La Niña events are part of a natural climate pattern called the El Niño Southern Oscillation.

In a normal year, the trade winds blow westwards across the Pacific, transporting warm water away from South America towards Australia and allowing colder water to well up along the coast.

But during the hot El Niño part of the cycle, these winds weaken or reverse, allowing warm water to build up in the tropical Pacific.

That concentration of warm water can raise the global average temperature and disrupt weather patterns on a global scale.

For the last few months, scientists have been watching with growing concern as these critical waters in the Pacific have warmed to record levels.

In July, sea surface temperatures exceeded 2.1°C (3.8°F) above average, but forecasts suggest that things are only going to get hotter.

To make matters worse, the WMO warns that El Niño has arrived alongside a climate phenomenon known as a positive Indian Ocean Dipole.

This is where the western Indian Ocean becomes warmer while the eastern part becomes cooler.

Together with El Niño, that temperature gradient amplifies climate risks, including droughts, floods, and wildfires – especially around the Indian Ocean.

But what does this mean for you?

El Niño only has an indirect effect on the UK's weather, but global effects on this scale will have knock–on impacts.

WMO Secretary–General Celeste Saulo says: 'This El Niño, developing against the backdrop of unprecedented ocean heat and rising temperatures, provides governments and communities with a window of opportunity to anticipate risks and act before impacts unfold.'

The most obvious consequence of a strengthening super El Niño is that the global temperature will be above average into next year.

El Niño isn't caused by climate change, but this extra heating does combine with the warming already being caused by human factors.

That means temperatures are likely to hit extreme levels all around the world, with the biggest effects being felt in Southern Europe, Africa, East Asia, Central America, South America, New Zealand, and the Caribbean.

This will also have a big impact on rainfall patterns between August and October this year.

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