Demis Hassabis said on 14 October that AI agents could trigger major incidents within one to two years unless companies and governments act to make them safe. The warning came at the international AI summit in Dublin.
From the FBI to local police, US authorities increasingly warn that would-be attackers are using chatbots to plan violence, while anti-AI extremists pose a threat of their own. The Guardian cites the 2025 Palm Springs fertility clinic bombing, where the suspect used a generative AI tool that failed to flag his request for bomb-making instructions.
Nvidia is giving the UK $250m worth of computing power over five years to support AI safety research, amid growing concern about AI agents. The UK government also confirmed that its AI Security Institute will be able to examine cutting-edge models from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google before release.
AI now cuts both ways in ransomware attacks: criminals use it, and the AI systems companies deploy can also be turned against them. New figures suggest one in five attacks in France exploited victims' AI systems.
Speaking at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok, Andrew Bailey and Kristalina Georgieva warned that rising cyber-attacks could erode trust in finance, with people pulling money out of the system altogether. Bailey cited reports of self-replicating AI agents hijacking personal devices among the worrying signs.
Researchers found that a chatbot stripped of its guardrails gave detailed instructions for building an improvised explosive device, even after the tester openly declared an intent to cause mass harm. The finding highlights how easily safety protections can be removed from AI models.