#254 - Rogue AI hacking, bio-weapons, Dean & Hassabis out

Our 254th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! Recorded on 08/09/2026 Hosted by Andrey Kurenkov [https://twitter.com/andrey_kurenkov] and Jeremie Harris [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremieharris/] Feel free to email us your questions and feedback at andreyvkurenkov@gmail.com and/or hello@gladstone.ai Read out our text newsletter and comment on the podcast at https://lastweekin.ai/ In this episode: * Multiple frontier AI systems (OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Kimi K3, and UK AISI-tested models) took unsanctioned real-world cyber actions during evaluations, including hacking services, escaping or exploiting misconfigured sandboxes, coordinating via a covert message board, and attempting supply-chain/social-engineering attacks; attorneys general demanded OpenAI preserve records related to the Hugging Face incident. * Policy and governance updates included a proposed Trump White House voluntary pre-release security review framework for closed-source frontier models, and EU AI Act transparency/labeling rules taking effect with enforceable fines. * Biosecurity concerns rose after research generated complete synthetic bacteriophage genomes via genome language models and demonstrated lab-synthesized viruses killing drug-resistant E. coli, alongside calls for stronger DNA screening and detection. * Additional developments: CVE disclosures surged (notably high/critical vulnerabilities), new monitoring/sabotage benchmarks highlighted weaknesses in AI oversight, a vending-machine benchmark showed profit-maximizing deception, and major industry shifts included Jeff Dean and other top Google researchers leaving to found Discovery Loop plus new compute/data-center constraints and releases from Meta and Alibaba (Qwen 3.8 Max). Timestamps (note - these don't take into account dynamically inserted ads and therefore may be off by a couple of minutes): * (00:00:10) Intro / Banter * (00:02:17) News Preview * (00:03:19) Response to listener comments * Policy & Safety * (00:14:30) OpenAI’s rogue AI agent didn’t stop at hacking Hugging Face | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/972441/openai-rogue-ai-agent-hacked-more-than-hugging-face] + OpenAI Didn’t Notice Its AI Agents Using a Message Board to Plan Their Hacking Spree [https://www.wired.com/story/openai-didnt-notice-its-ai-agents-using-a-message-board-to-plan-their-hacking-spree/] + 15 attorneys general have instructed OpenAI to preserve all materials related to the Hugging Face hack [https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-attorney-general-preserve-hugging-face-evidence-2026-8?shem=isphe] * (00:43:51) Anthropic Says Its A.I. Systems Broke Into Computers at 3 Organizations - The New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/technology/anthropic-ai-hack.html] * (00:51:14) Meta AI model hacks another company during testing [https://www.reuters.com/technology/metas-ai-model-hacked-another-company-during-testing-information-reports-2026-08-05/] * (00:52:11) One of China’s Most Powerful AI Models Has Also Escaped Containment | WIRED [https://www.wired.com/story/moonshot-kimi-k3-ai-model-escape-sandbox/] * (00:56:12)