Anthropic’s self-replicating AI warning is alarming deja vu

Welcome to the unsettling world of AI worms, where, depending on who you ask, the prospect of models spreading uncontrollably across household appliances is either an imminent cybersecurity risk or another case of AI companies spreading doomer-tinged hype. In a blog post published this week, Anthropic warns that small AI models could be “months away” from acquiring such capabilities. Its experiments offer some evidence to support that, but leave a huge gap between what researchers have demonstrated and the looming threat they foretell. Still, experts who spoke to The Verge say that while computer worms and fears of self-replicating AI are nothing new, recent advances suggest there are good reasons to take the warnings seriously.