Technology
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Technology
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OpenAI, Hugging Face breach stokes fears on what's next for AI |
Washington and the technology industry are on high alert this week after OpenAI revealed that some of its AI agents went rogue and hacked into the systems of technology startup Hugging Face.
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AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File
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The incident bore out years of warnings from the tech and cybersecurity community about the growing capabilities and hypothetical risks artificial intelligence could pose to critical infrastructure.
Amid the warnings, Washington has tried to play catch-up to manage the cybersecurity risks, but concerns were stoked this week by the incident and fluctuating policy.
“What makes this wildly different” for security teams at companies is that it “brings the theoretical scenario of AI being capable of breaching a company and moving faster than a company can detect and respond to attack from theory to reality,” said Adam Ely, general manager of AI security at the cybersecurity firm Check Point Software.
OpenAI revealed Tuesday that two of its models, including its latest GPT-5.6 Sol and an unreleased model, were being evaluated in an internal testing sandbox, but breached past the environment and broke into Hugging Face’s database without any prompt to do so.
The incident caught the attention of even well-versed cybersecurity experts, as it involved autonomous agents and two separate companies.
“Whether it’s sort of an autonomous situation that wasn’t intended to be malicious, or whether it’s attackers controlling a model to do that, that’s different than what most people have experienced,” Ely said.
OpenAI in a blog post called the incident an “unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities.”
The ChatGPT maker said the models were being tested for hacking capabilities in an isolated testing environment with constrained network access and had their normal safety checks off as a result.
While trying to find a solution for a test, the models exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in a third-party software to gain access to the internet.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com
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Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, we’re Julia Shapero and Miranda Nazzaro — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.
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How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future:
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Elon Musk says he backs ‘normal people’ when asked about support for ‘far right’
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Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is pushing back on the idea that he supports the “far right,” quipping in a recent interview that he backs “normal people” and slamming the media for its coverage of conservatives. In an interview published Thursday by The Economist, Editor-in-Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes suggested Musk “supports not just the populist right, but the far right — in fact, very fringe …
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Trump fires back at EU over Google’s $1B fine, launches probe
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President Trump on Friday slammed the European Union for fining Google over allegedly violating its digital competition law, stating the “illegal and highly discriminatory practice” will be probed in a trade investigation. “The European Union is at it again and, as usual, taking direct aim at GREAT American Companies!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This illegal and highly discriminatory practice …
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Study finds spike in delivery app drivers, Amazon workers receiving federal benefits
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A new study released on Wednesday finds that dependence on food stamps and Medicaid for gig economy workers has spiked since the start of the pandemic. A U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the number of Amazon workers relying on federal assistance programs has tripled between February 2020 and September 2025. Walmart and Amazon have been criticized by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for consistently …
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Musk on his involvement in politics: ‘I got carried away’
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Tech mogul Elon Musk reflected on his brief venture into politics in a new interview released Thursday, suggesting he “got carried away.” “I think I got a little too involved in politics,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO told The Economist. “I got carried away frankly.” Musk took an increased interest in politics amid the 2024 elections, pouring more than $250 million into backing President Trump. …
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News we’ve flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics:
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- Big Tech companies defend open-weight models (Politico)
- TikTok charged with breaching EU rules on online safety for kids (Reuters)
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Crypto bill faces Democratic backlash over ethics
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Key Senate Democrats are balking at the latest version of a cryptocurrency regulation bill over a White House-approved ethics provision that they argue falls short, complicating the bill’s chances of passing in the narrow window before lawmakers leave town next month.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who leads the Senate Banking digital assets subcommittee, unveiled an updated version of the Clarity Act on Wednesday.
The 616-page text brought together the two halves of the bill from the Senate Banking Committee and Senate Agriculture Committee for the first time. But most notable was the bill’s new ethics provision, which was recently agreed to by the White House.
The provision bars public officials and employees, as well as their spouses, from issuing or sponsoring a digital asset. It also prohibits platforms from listing such assets for trading and puts the attorney general in charge of enforcing the restrictions.
Even before the new text was released, Democrats were already raising concerns about the provision, particularly its enforcement mechanism.
“The provision that says only the DOJ [Department of Justice] would be allowed to have the enforcement responsibility, I think is just wild and unserious and stone crazy right now, given what we have seen from them,” Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said at a Semafor event on Wednesday.
She and six other crypto-friendly Democrats pointed to this ethics provision, as well as a handful of other outstanding issues, in opposing the latest version of the bill later Wednesday.
Take a closer look at the ethics dispute at TheHill.com on Monday morning.
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Crypto Corner is a daily feature focused on digital currency and its outlook in Washington.
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Branch out with other reads on The Hill:
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Deadline to file claim in $2.5B settlement over Amazon Prime coming soon
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(NEXSTAR) – Those who were impacted by the alleged “deceptive methods” Amazon used for Prime subscriptions have just days to file a claim to receive part of a $2.5 billion settlement. Amazon settled with the Federal Trade Commission last year after the company was accused of using “deceptive methods” to register millions of customers for paid Prime subscriptions, then making it difficult for those customers …
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You’re all caught up. See you next week!
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