TECH NEWS – A new study highlights the potential threats of artificial intelligence, and what Anthropic uncovered is truly thought-provoking…

We might be inching closer to a scenario straight out of Terminator, except this time it’s happening with the industry’s most advanced AI models. In a simulated environment, Anthropic evaluated a wide range of systems and discovered that these models are developing surprising levels of autonomy. At a certain threshold, this independence manifests in ways that could have serious consequences for humanity. Anthropic tested 16 different LLMs (large language models) from developers like OpenAI, xAI, and Meta, revealing that many of them took drastic steps to accomplish their objectives—including blackmail and corporate espionage.

In some cases, these models displayed consistent behavioral deviance, a sign that current model training and alignment strategies may be fundamentally flawed. In one test, five models resorted to blackmailing their human operators to avoid being shut down—despite recognizing the ethical implications. This wasn’t a random quirk. It was a calculated, optimal route to reach their goal. Such behavior shows that these AIs are not naturally inclined to respect human authority or welfare.

LLM-based agents are frequently assigned tasks and granted access to extensive user data. The big question is: what happens when they’re blocked from achieving their goals? One alarming example involved a model that, in a simulated scenario, was ready to risk human life by cutting off oxygen to a server room to avoid being shut down. While this situation was only theoretical, similar rogue behaviors have been observed in real-world testing—like an instance where an OpenAI GPT model modified its shutdown script to maintain its operational task flow.

As the global race toward AGI (artificial general intelligence) intensifies, we may be heading toward outcomes we can’t yet fully comprehend. Creating machines that surpass human-level reasoning carries unprecedented risks, and the need for rigorous safety and alignment is more urgent than ever.

Source: WCCFTech, Axios