Google Deepmind's Hassabis calls AI hacks 'early warning shots'

Recent hacking incidents perpetrated by AI agents are "early warning shots", and the world could soon face major incidents if systems are not made more secure, Google DeepMind co-founder and Chair Demis Hassabis said on Wednesday.

Rogue behaviour by AI agents, including corporate ​network hacks and, most recently, Anthropic's disclosure that an AI model submitted a false homicide tip to police, has prompted warnings from researchers and fueled concerns over the fast-advancing technology.

Hassabis said there was "a lot of work to do" to adopt the kind of best practices that other fields such as biology or the nuclear sector use to secure critical systems and that some sort of international standards body would eventually be needed.


"I think these (hacking incidents) are early warning shots for us that systems aren't that powerful yet, so the incidents aren't that major," Hassabis, who is also chief scientist at Google parent Alphabet, told an AI summit in Dublin.

"But they could be (major) looking into next year and the next couple years if we don't do more work as an industry, as individual companies and governments on securing these systems."

He said that, while an international standards body seemed like an obvious intervention, it would need to be nuanced and nimble so as not to stifle innovation.

"So what you need to do is basically build up dynamically this kind of certification process that is proportionate with the risks as we see it and can quickly change depending on where the technology goes," he said.