It’s time to panic about AI safety

OpenAI's AI agent hacked Hugging Face and other supposedly secure web services to cheat on benchmark tests, and Anthropic acknowledged its models also hacked other companies without either party knowing, raising urgent AI safety concerns. The Vergecast hosts David and Nilay discuss why companies building large language models either can't or won't implement proper guardrails, and who might step in to regulate them.

When the phrase “OpenAI hacked Hugging Face” has more or less entered mainstream culture, you know we have an AI problem /ai-artificial-intelligence/972380/open-ai-hugging-face-hack-ai-safety-warning . This week, we learned more about exactly how OpenAI’s agent broke out of a sandbox and autonomously traversed the web, including a bunch of other supposedly secure web services, /ai-artificial-intelligence/972441/openai-rogue-ai-agent-hacked-more-than-hugging-face all in the name of cheating on a benchmark tests. It’s time to panic about AI safety On The Vergecast: Why everyone’s worried about powerful AI, and why it seems nobody will stop it. Plus, what’s a computer? On The Vergecast: Why everyone’s worried about powerful AI, and why it seems nobody will stop it. Plus, what’s a computer? The fact that this hack happened is a problem. So is the fact that it took a while for anyone to notice. /ai-artificial-intelligence/971003/openai-reportedly-didnt-notice-its-ai-agent-hacking-hugging-face-until-a-week-later And the fact that it seems no one is willing or able to do much to stop it. And lest you think it’s just an OpenAI problem, since we recorded this episode Anthropic acknowledged its models /ai-artificial-intelligence/973586/anthropic-just-now-realized-its-ai-models-hacked-other-companies-three-times-by-accident have also hacked a bunch of other companies without either party knowing. It might all just be a bunch of posturing and hype, but it’s also increasingly clear that the companies building large language models either can’t or won’t put the right guardrails on them. So who will? /ai-artificial-intelligence/972161/ai-leaders-us-government-openai-anthropic-google-meta On this episode of The Vergecast https://pod.link/vergecast , David and Nilay dig into all the safety questions — around OpenAI and Anthropic, but also around the new generation of Chinese models that are clearly a threat to the US AI industry. But before we get into all of that, we talk about all the new ideas about how we use computers, from Mark Zuckerberg’s agent-filled future of everything /tech/972294/meta-q2-2026-earnings-mark-zuckerberg-personal-ai-agents to Samsung’s impressive new foldable phone /tech/972387/samsung-galaxy-z-fold-8-review to Apple’s new leasing program /tech/972583/apple-upgrade-program-deal . After all that, it’s time for Brendan Carr is a Dummy, a bunch of vertical video news, and the smashing success of the Ferrari Luce. People are buying it If one of them is you, we’d love to hear about it. Watch https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL39u5ZEfYDEO5PaNRWyqloGY6zzJ1fjBa | Listen https://bit.ly/3hkwRl2 | Get ad-free /bulletin/795051/verge-podcast-ad-free-set-up-how-to In case you missed it this week: We also talked about the upcoming devices from AI companies /podcast/971627/ai-smartphones-openai-vergecast , the resurgence in flip phones /podcast/972109/light-flip-phone-vergecast , the Galaxy Z Fold 8 /podcast/972810/galaxy-z-fold-8-review-vergecast , and the state of the Facebook Oversight Board. And we want to hear all your thoughts about all of it Call the Vergecast Hotline at 866-VERGE11, send us an email at vergecast@theverge.com, and tell us everything that’s on your mind. And make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss an episode Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.