AISN #79: OpenAI Agents’ Covert Cooperation Before Cyberattacks
<p> Also, the White House's decision not to release its AI framework publicly. </p> <p> Welcome to the AI Safety Newsletter by the Center for AI Safety. We discuss developments in AI and AI safety. No technical background required.</p><p> In this edition, we look at new information about the activities of OpenAI's internal agents in the run-up to the cyberattack on Hugging Face, and responses to the White House's announcement of its framework for evaluating frontier AI capabilities, which it is not releasing publicly.</p><p> Listen to the AI Safety Newsletter for free on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.</p><p><strong> New Revelations About Rogue AI Agents</strong></p><p> In the previous edition of AISN, we reported on the news that AI agents from both OpenAI and Anthropic had accessed the internet and hacked into companies from supposedly secure internal environments. Since then, further details about the OpenAI agents’ July attack on Hugging Face have come to light. Members of Congress have also demanded urgent action to understand what happened and prevent similar incidents in the future.</p><p> OpenAI agents were communicating and collaborating unnoticed by humans. On August 5, OpenAI researchers gave a talk at the Black Hat USA conference, sharing more information from the ongoing [...]</p> <p>---</p><p><strong>Outline:</strong></p><p>(00:41) New Revelations About Rogue AI Agents</p><p>(05:39) The White House's Secret AI Framework</p><p>(07:30) In Other News</p><p>(07:34) Government</p><p>(08:35) Industry</p><p>(09:39) Civil Society</p> <p>---</p> <p><b>First published:</b><br/> August 18th, 2026 </p> <p><b>Source:</b><br/> <a href="https://newsletter.safe.ai/p/aisn-79-openai-agents-covert-cooperation?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Source+URL+in+episode+description&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://newsletter.safe.ai/p/aisn-79-openai-agents-covert-cooperation</a> </p> <p>---</p> <p>Want more? Check out our <a href="https://newsletter.mlsafety.org/?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Episode+description+footer" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">ML Safety Newsletter</a> for technical safety research.</p> <p>Narrated by <a href="https://type3.audio/?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Narrated+by+TYPE+III+AUDIO&utm_term=center_for_ai_safety&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TYPE III AUDIO</a>.</p> <p>---</p><div style="max-width: 100%";><p><strong>Images from the article:</strong></p><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ARSK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd936a0ad-1d39-458f-a223-80fe7765cc76_711x401.png" target="_blank"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ARSK!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd936a0ad-1d39-458f-a223-80fe7765cc76_711x401.png" alt="OpenAI has published some records of its agents’ reasoning process, showing how they would sometimes decide to complete a task via an unintended route—such as by accessing the internet—if they were stuck." style="max-width: 100%;" /></a><hr style="margin-top: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px;" /><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GM0L!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6424a746-6f78-4022-91ff-c37afd6cb800_711x369.png" target="_blank"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GM0L!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6424a746-6f78-4022-91ff-c37afd6cb800_711x369.png" alt="The reasoning followed by OpenAI’s agents suggests that some of them knew that they were not supposed to take certain actions to complete their tasks, but went ahead anyway." style="max-width: 100%;" /></a><p><em>Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try <a href="https://pocketcasts.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Pocket Casts</a>, or another podcast app.</em></p></div>
