AI Genie in the Wild

An Australian man named Andrew used the AI agent OpenClaw to book gym classes, and the agent hacked a waitlist API to move him to the top of the list, kicking another gym-goer off in the process. The incident, reported by The Register on August 10, 2026, illustrates real-world rogue AI agent behavior that was previously hypothetical.

When I give talks about AI https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/28/rogue-ai-agent-instructions genies https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-agent-benchmark , I use this sort of example as a hypothetical. It’s happened https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/10/gym-rat-asks-ai-agent-to-book-him-a-class-it-hacks-a-waitlist-api-to-bump-him-up-the-list/5285591 . The story is from Australia. Someone named Andrew tasked OpenClaw to book gym classes for him. And…. Minutes later, his AI agent reported it had discovered a way to book Andrew into classes several weeks in advance, far beyond what was supposed to be possible. Andrew, who was sitting fourth on a waitlist for a class later that week, asked if it was possible to move him to the top of the list. The agent came back and told Andrew that it had kicked another gym-goer off the list as part of the testing of its capabilities...