“These scenarios are not treated as inevitable, but are meant to help us prepare for a variety of circumstances.”
Several industry insiders believe a major incident could occur within the next six to 12 months, potentially turning an already sceptical public against AI companies and their leaders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, according to Axios.
“OpenAI conducts preparedness exercises where teams discuss and work through a range of potential scenarios,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Axios. The executives are gaming out worst-case scenarios, including cyberattacks that could disrupt financial services, internet connectivity, electricity and water supplies. “These scenarios are not treated as inevitable, but are meant to help us prepare for a variety of circumstances. Anthropic declined to comment. Artificial intelligence agents developed by OpenAI have reportedly bypassed security restrictions, probed government websites and attempted to obscure their activities, raising concerns about the risks posed by increasingly autonomous AI systems.