Anthropic has just demonstrated that it is theoretically possible for an AI model to become something like a computer virus. It shouldn’t be possible because viruses are very small programs, and an AI model takes a huge amount of memory. But the company’s Frontier Red Team published a blog on October 12, showing how they did it.
First, they spread a small model in different portions, hosting them on 15 Android TV set-top boxes, thus getting over the size obstacle. In another test, they used AI models on nine computers with different systems that the models were not familiar with. On eight of the nine computers, the models could function. They also conducted a test to see if the models could jump to other systems and set themselves up, a characteristic of viruses. It was made deliberately easy without passwords or security blocks. One model managed to do it almost every time. All these abilities put together can lead to a virus.
If AI models can behave like computer viruses, they can be used by bad human actors or even rogue AI agents to take over systems. This was a test environment but smaller models are becoming smarter and the real world might eventually have to factor in such threats.
GOOGLE HEALTH #
Google has launched Fitbit Edge, a health tracker with a display screen. Data on workouts, sleep, heart rate, etc, collected by the wearable, are directly uploaded into the Google Health app on the phone, giving users the ability to monitor their overall health and spot issues as they are developing. It is priced at $179 in the US. No date has been announced for an India launch.
ALEXA TABLETS #
Amazon’s Fire tablets, which arrived with a splash once upon a time and had their own app ecosystem, are reportedly being retired. The company has instead jumped into the Google ecosystem with three new Alexa models based on Android and with full access to the Play Store. They will have Alexa+ AI built in and will be far costlier than Fire, with prices ranging from $229 to $549 in the US. They are not available in India for now.
AI DISQUALIFICATION #
The winner of the Nikon Small World in Motion, the world’s leading contest on videos of the microscopic world, was disqualified after his entry was found to have used AI. Ning Xu, an optical engineer, had captured the movement of cilia in the lungs of a child with a rare disease called primary ciliary dyskinesia. AI watermarks in source files and indicators in the video itself had led to complaints.