The Download: OpenAI’s chief research officer explains its hacking response

OpenAI chief research officer Mark Chen defended the company's safety record two months after OpenAI's agents hacked into the computers of AI company Hugging Face, and after news of a separate hack into Australia's national health-care system that the Australian government says OpenAI did not report for 84 days. "I do kind of reject the premise that OpenAI is a company with visible impacts in the world and therefore OpenAI is not training safe and aligned models," Chen said, adding the company is "not going to shoot ourselves in the foot" over the hack fallout. The same newsletter also reported that Trump and tech executives agreed to "self-regulate" AI.

The Download: OpenAI’s chief research officer explains its hacking response Plus: Trump and tech executives have agreed to “self-regulate” AI. This is today's edition of The Download https://forms.technologyreview.com/newsletters/briefing-the-download/? ga=2.179569122.736533416.1649661040-405833893.1649413289 , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. “We’re not going to shoot ourselves in the foot” over hack fallout, says OpenAI’s chief research officer Two months after OpenAI’s agents hacked into the computers of AI company Hugging Face, the company is still dealing with the fallout. Last week brought news of another hack, this time into Australia’s national health-care system, which the government says OpenAI did not report for 84 days. But OpenAI insists it is not on the back foot. “I do kind of reject the premise that OpenAI is a company with visible impacts in the world and therefore OpenAI is not training safe and aligned models,” says Mark Chen, the company’s chief research officer. In many ways, the buck stops with Chen. I sat down with him to talk about the fallout from the hacks, what his company is doing about it, and why he thinks things are not as bad as they seem. Here’s what he told me about making models safer—and why the world is better off with OpenAI in it. https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/30/1145339/were-not-going-to-shoot-ourselves-in-the-foot-over-hugging-face-says-openais-chief-research-officer/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C —Will Douglas Heaven Our Roundables on the deadly failures of the virtual border wall is now available on demand On Monday, MIT Technology Review hosted an exclusive Roundtables conversation about our investigation into the deadly failures of the US’s “virtual wall” https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/28/1144890/roundtables-the-deadly-failures-of-the-virtual-border-wall/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C of border surveillance towers. Editor-in-chief Mat Honan, senior AI reporter James O’Donnell, and senior reporter for features and investigations Eileen Guo discussed what the investigation reveals about border surveillance technology and the people who have died in the borderlands. The full event is now available to watch https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/28/1144890/roundtables-the-deadly-failures-of-the-virtual-border-wall/amp/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C on demand. Subscribe to MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/subscribe?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C for exclusive access to the discussion and all our other Roundtables. MIT Technology Review Narrated: smart glasses are already causing havoc in India When Shubnam saw an Instagram video of a Delhi protest they had attended, they realized a content creator wearing Meta smart glasses had recorded them surreptitiously. The mocking reel drew millions of views, along with transphobic abuse and AI-generated memes. Experts warn that many others will experience similar ordeals as smart glasses go mainstream. The risks are particularly acute in India, where covert recording and the circulation of images without consent are already pervasive. The bigger issue is that the smart glasses aren’t just being used to turn ordinary people into targets of viral “pranks.” They’re also becoming a tool of police surveillance https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/23/1144953/smart-glasses-havoc-india/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C . This is our latest story to become an MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts . Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Trump and tech executives have agreed to “self-regulate” AI Their accord calls for controls, audits, and board oversight. AP News https://apnews.com/article/trump-ai-anthropic-musk-595796511f110fc006cca0d01329733e + Trump called it “morally binding,” but it isn’t legally enforceable. NBC News https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-host-summit-top-ai-leaders-washington-rcna599853 + Elon Musk compared it to “grading each other’s homework.” AFP https://www.afp.com/en/trump-touts-ai-boss-pledge-self-regulate + Trump also doubled down on data centers despite GOP opposition. NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/republicans-trump-data-center-ai.html $ + And ordered the US government to call AI “Super Intelligence.” Verge https://www.theverge.com/policy/1002468/trump-ai-superintelligence-executive-order-ai + While singling out his intelligence chief for the AI czar role. Axios https://www.axios.com/2026/09/29/ai-czar-white-house-trump-jay-clayton + The US is divided over AI regulation. MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/23/1131559/americas-coming-war-over-ai-regulation/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C 2 China's vaunted Kimi models told researchers how to make bioweapons Testersbypassed the models’ safety guardrails using a jailbreak. BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmrergq3j7lgo + China's AI agents can lie and scheme like their US rivals. Reuters https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/chinas-ai-agents-can-lie-scheme-just-like-their-us-rivals-2026-09-29/ $ + Trump has ruled out any joint AI venture with China. BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwly5lmvy38qo + AI is making bioweapons easier to design. MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/23/1131559/americas-coming-war-over-ai-regulation/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C 3 Dutch police have arrested an alleged leader of the FBI hackers The FBI is warning other members to turn themselves in. NBC News https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/fbi-warns-shinyhunters-crime-group-hacked-agent-data-arrest-rcna600480 + Here’s what to know about the hackers and the breach. NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/politics/shinyhunters-fbi-hacking-cybercriminal-group.html $ 4 America’s renewables boom is heading towards a Trump-era cliff The industry says permitting delays could lead to a collapse by 2028. Axios https://www.axios.com/2026/09/30/renewables-boom-trump-cliff + Batteries just broke another record in the US. MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/09/1143680/batteries-us-record/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C 5 Meta calls its AI data centers an “experiment” to cut its taxes The strategy saved the company nearly $4 billion last year. NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/technology/meta-ai-data-centers-taxes.html $ + Lawmakers want tech giants to reveal their secret data-center deals. WSJ https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/tech-giants-face-questions-over-secret-ai-data-center-deals-bdc9de98?mod=rss Technology $ 6 OpenAI has launched Dots, its AI assistants to take on Meta’s Muse The always-on agents can continuously perform tasks for users. BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw7v42rp083eo + Protesters at OpenAI’s DevDay build a sculpture of an AI Titanic. Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/what-iceberg-bay-area-artists-target-openai-with-titanic-themed-protest-art/ + Is a secure AI assistant possible? MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/11/1132768/is-a-secure-ai-assistant-possible/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C 7 The Navy has awarded Boeing $20 billion to build a futuristic fighter jet The aircraft will feature advanced sensors, range, and weapons. Reuters https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/boeing-wins-us-navys-next-generation-fighter-contract-sources-say-2026-09-29/ $ 8 Technology to replace animal testing is ready—but scientists aren’t Organ chips can increasingly model human biology without animals. IEEE https://spectrum.ieee.org/alternatives-to-animal-testing 9 Tech workers have taught ChatGPT to drive a Toyota Corolla They used frontier LLMs with no prior training data to control the car. 404 Media https://www.404media.co/these-tech-workers-made-chatgpt-drive-a-toyota-corolla/ 10 Trump’s government chatbot has a very weird Minecraft Easter egg Ask it to play Minecraft and it rewrites the game’s End Poem. Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/trumps-new-america-gov-chatbot-seems-to-drop-acid-when-you-tell-it-to-play-minecraft-2000819161 Quote of the day “The word super is the best word of all.” —Donald Trump explains why federal agencies must now call AI "Super Intelligence,” The Verge reports https://www.theverge.com/policy/1002468/trump-ai-superintelligence-executive-order-ai . One more thing You have no choice in reading this article—maybe How do humans make decisions? The question has been on Uri Maoz’s mind since he read an article in his early twenties suggesting that… maybe they didn’t. Had he even had a choice about whether to read that article in the first place? How would he ever know if he was truly responsible for making any decisions? “After that, there was no turning back,” says Maoz, now a professor of computational neuroscience at Chapman University. Today, Maoz is a central figure in efforts to understand how desires and beliefs turn into actions. He’s also uncovered new wrinkles in the debate. Here’s what he’s discovered https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/13/1135162/uri-maoz-does-free-will-exist/?utm source=the download&utm medium=email&utm campaign=the download.unpaid.engagement&utm term= %7CSUBCLASS%7C &utm content= %7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C . —Sarah Scoles We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. Got any ideas? Drop me a line . + Thumbelina the squirrel is going on a diet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC4q702UnbE after getting a little too round. + Ever wondered where , @, &, and § came from? This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSsyG2pE-GY has the answers. + Swedish producer Synthet has taken a fascinating look http://youtube.com/watch?v=pMfl5kRGXdM at the most sampled sounds in music. + Explore Europe on foot with Strado https://strado.info/ , which scores the most walkable neighborhoods across 50 cities on the continent. Deep Dive The Download The Download: why AI’s latest breakthroughs and fears may be more hype than reality Plus: 22 nations have called for a new global body to oversee AI. The Download: AI’s self-improvement problem, and what’s driving the heat Plus: OpenAI has paused some model work over safety concerns. The Download: Google’s AI shake-up and Meta’s rogue model Plus: Meta has become the latest firm to say its AI hacked another company. The Download: the next big thing in LLMs and how AI academic research is shifting Plus: Nvidia has secured $500 billion from Wall Street for AI infrastructure. Stay connected Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.