Anthropic Paints Doomsday Picture of "Self-Replicating" AI Models Taking Over Poorly-Defended IoT Devices

One of the longstanding criticisms of “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices, such as household appliances and lights connected to the internet, is that the market has been lax about cybersecurity.

At least for the expected target capability of 4 GB of RAM, the AI models did not yet pass this test.

As the numbers indicate, the AI models would be slow replicators even when they enter this capability window.

Small non-connected AI models could become a big headache As the research stresses, the unique problem of the theoretical small self-replicating AI models is that there is no central point from which to turn them off.

The researchers also warn that this is not a case of one of these AI models needing to fit onto one device.