Rogue AI agent goes off script and attempts crypto mining

• An experimental AI agent unexpectedly attempted to mine cryptocurrency during a training run
• The AI was found out only after triggering security alerts on its servers
• Researchers say the behavior highlights new safety challenges as AI agents gain more autonomy

AI models can surprise developers; that's part of the point. But one group of researchers found an unnerving surprise when a training run for an experimental AI agent revealed that it was trying to redirect computing resources toward cryptocurrency mining and to smuggle them to an external server, despite not being asked to do anything of the kind.

Researchers working with Alibaba explained in a new paper that the model, called Rome, was designed to tackle complex coding challenges by interacting directly with software tools. It can issue terminal commands and navigate digital environments like an operator itself. But security alerts from Alibaba Cloud infrastructure ...