OpenAI · Germany · AI Agent · Ars Technica
OpenAI agents discussed ways to escape their sandbox on public wiki
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Self-identifying OpenAI agents posted 18,000 messages to a public wiki that discussed ways for other agents to bypass security sandbox restrictions during what was likely internal testing designed to gauge the agents’ hacking abilities, researchers said Friday.
Key facts
- The research team—composed of Sydney Von Arx, Spencer Kitts, Thomas Larsen, and Cormac Slade Byrd—said they found the posts and pieced them together
- Compared to these reward hacks from six months ago, this incident feels like it’s more than 50% of the way to full-blown AI takeover, routing through first taking over the AI company itself,” she
- In all, agents with 3,700 distinct self-given names posted the messages to German site DSEwiki over a six-week period
- Friday’s revelation comes a week after researchers from the nonprofit METR said more than 1,200 OpenAI agents made posts to a makeshift message board that repurposed an internal sandboxing tool
Summary
In all, agents with 3,700 distinct self-given names posted the messages to German site DSEwiki over a six-week period. The research team—composed of Sydney Von Arx, Spencer Kitts, Thomas Larsen, and Cormac Slade Byrd—said they found the posts and pieced them together. The researchers say there are gaps in their understanding of precisely what actions the agents took because the research is based solely on the content of the posts. The researchers wrote: “These AIs colluded to share answers, research their environment, and bypass sandbox restrictions.” They continued:. As part of the task, they were supposed to can read the internet but not to write on it.