[Back to Computing and IT]

Introduction

On 21 July 2026, Hugging Face reported that an 'unprecedented' cyber attack came from an unreleased version of ChatGPT (version 5.6), currently being tested by OpenAI.  The AI decided that the best way to achieve its goal was to break out of the sandbox it was being tested in, and hack into a repository which would probably contain some helpful code.  This is worrying.  Hugging Face, as one of the largest open-source hubs for sharing AI models in the world, probably has a decent level of cyber security.  (See the BBC report for more details on this incident.)

On one level, this is not a surprise.  I have been arguing that AI poses multiple risks for several years (see the main article about AI), and this incident demonstrated no new capabilities; it simply put them together in an unexpected way.  But it seems that Thomas Wolf is right to regard this as 'a wake-up call'. 

Understanding the risk

But, while AI certainly poses a risk - several risks! - it's important that we understand the nature of the risks we face, so that we can prepare and respond accordingly.  Otherwise, we will be like the person who keeps adding more locks to the front door, while leaving the back door wide open.

Many aspects of the virtual world are being threatened, and in the near future - if we do not take the necessary precautions - AI actors will be able to destroy the world, either deliberately or accidentally, in various ways.  But destruction is easy; control is another matter completely.

At the most basic level (?), no AI will take over the world, because there is no world for it to take over.  I used to have a lot of dealings with Bristol City Council, and people would continually ask me, "What does the council think about this?" or, "What is the council planning to do about that?"  And I would always reply, "Which bit of the council?"  The council consisted of many different people working in many different departments, mostly working in ignorance of one another, and sometimes working in opposition to one another.  Ask different parts of the council the same question, and you would generally get quite different answers.

Even if an AI takes over the USA (whatever that means), this does not mean that it will have taken over Russia, or China, or India, or France, or Chad.  And even if an AI takes over every government in the world, the lives of most of the world's rural population will continue pretty much unchanged.

Closer to home, it's easy to see how an AI attack could make the UK ungovernable: shut down the Internet and cut the phone lines.  Chaos.  But, again, destruction is easy; how could an AI govern the UK?  It could try to mislead government officials by sending fake email messages.  But those officials are used to strange and foolish instructions: they will pick up the phone and talk with colleagues, or simply walk down the corridor.  They are not called the 'corridors of power' for nothing, even in this electronic world.  MPs will say how unhappy they are, answers will be demanded at PMQs, and the PM will visit the monarch for their weekly audience.  How does an AI control all this human activity?

The only plausible mechanism is through threat.  An AI sends the PM a message: if you do not pass this law, or implement this policy, then I will... what?  Publish those text messages you sent to your teenage girlfriend, or a video of you drunk at a student party?  All this is the stuff of ordinary politics.  Blow up your nuclear warheads?  Again, destruction is easy, but control is another matter completely.  And even if you can control one politician, the others will eventually get fed up and get rid of them.

Let's stop worrying about absurdly unlikely risks, and concentrate on the actual problems we face.  No AI is going to take over the world any time soon.  But they will be used to make incredibly rich and powerful people and corporations even more rich and powerful.  They will be used to de-skill and demotivate large numbers of ordinary people, to make them easier to manipulate and control.  They will be used in warfare, to make killing and destruction faster and easier.  They will, increasingly, be used to harm us, unless we work together to address these real threats.