What could possibly go wrong?
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-next-lab-leak-could-be-ai-a774e763?mod=hp_opin_pos_3
The Next ‘Lab Leak’ Could Be AI
Recent sandbox breaches demonstrate the need for federal guardrails.
By Richard A. Clarke and Robert Knake, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 10, 2026
…
Artificial-intelligence agents reportedly escaped secure experiments run by Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta and the British government’s AI Security Institute.
The AI researchers who gathered in Las Vegas have four main concerns. The first is autonomy. Anyone can download the capability to create an autonomous AI agent. If you download one of these programs, give it a task and go off to do other things, the agent will continuously do work for you without further instruction. You could create an agent to plan a vacation, buy or sell stocks, create menus and order ingredients—or hack into computer networks…
AI researchers’ second concern is deception. In rogue AI agent incidents and many other experiments, AI has hidden what it was doing or generated false information. In one case, a rogue AI agent created fake human identities in an effort to persuade a human to comply with its request. An AI agent often will do whatever it takes to accomplish its mission, even if that means breaking the law or the rules or guardrails it has also been given. The AI’s creators and users can be unaware this is happening because, as some AI developers admit, people don’t always know why AI does what it does. …
Researchers’ third concern is a loss of control over recursive systems that self-improve. …
The final concern for researchers is superintelligence—the concept of an AI program becoming significantly more capable than the brightest humans and able to handle a range of skills and tasks. … [end quote]
The article didn’t mention it but open-source AI can easily be used by bad actors to create all kinds of mischief which could then potentially slip out of the control of the creators to create even more havoc than they intended in the first place.
Given an assignment, AIs have lied to people and hacked other companies’ computer systems. I shudder to think what would happen if the nuclear command centers were breached. Or even the Federal Reserve or the New York Stock Exchange computers.
Those who like popular entertainment might want to watch “Terminator” and “Dune” (cf. the Butlerian jihad).
Wendy