OpenAI's artificial intelligence model GPT-4 has the capability to hack websites and steal information from online databases without human help, researchers have found. That suggests individuals or organisations without hacking expertise could unleash AI agents to carry out cyber attacks. "You literally don't need to understand anything – you can just let the agent go hack the website by itself," says Daniel Kang at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "We think this really reduces the expertise needed to…

It is surprisingly easy to remove the safety measures intended to prevent AI chatbots from giving harmful responses that could aid would-be terrorists or mass shooters. The discovery seems to be prompting companies including OpenAI to develop strategies to solve the problem – but research suggests their efforts have been met with only limited success so far.