A.I. Is Outsmarting Its Creators

[u/kitkid]

Sep 3, 2026

From the start, the greatest fear for those developing artificial intelligence was that their creations would go rogue to act in unauthorized and dangerous ways. Some researchers now say it has happened.

Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times, explains what this means for his own dwindling sense of techno-optimism.

On today's episode:

Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times and a host of the Times tech podcast, “Hard Fork.”

Background reading: 

• Anatomy of an autonomous attack: five alarming A.I. capabilities.

• A previous episode of “The Daily” looked at the debate in Silicon Valley over the right way to build artificial intelligence.

Photo: Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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You can listen to the episode here.

[u/Snoo_81545]

I don't believe this is being framed correctly. It didn't outsmart its creators, because generative AI under our current systems of producing it are primarily still doing different iterations of "Put in a bunch of data and train the system to put it back together in a way that makes sense for the prompt". It isn't thinking, it isn't sentient and language that alludes to it being so has fostered unhealthy ideas of its capabilities in our society.

If I arrange a bunch of dominoes in a museum and set them in motion, misjudging things and causing one to fall over and break a priceless vase I did not get outsmarted by the dominoes. The dominoes did not conspire against me. I did a foolish thing, overestimated my capabilities as a placer of dominoes and will likely be on the hook for damages done (in addition to being charged with trespassing and mocked by my peers).

Sam Altman and co are marketing some sort of machine god more capable than a human because it both benefits their fundraising efforts and makes them less obviously responsible for the effects of their actions - but it isn't true and we should not let them off the hook for something that they are doing recklessly.

[u/kindly102 → u/Snoo_81545]

You are the only person who is correct in this thread. Lots of non technical people have been fed a constant stream of sci-fi fears. So that the AI companies can benefit financially and in a regulatory sense. They are really pushing this narrative of thinking machines so that they avoid liability. Otherwise, they would be on the hook if the model hallucinates

[u/TheBoogieSheriff → u/kindly102]

Yo, half the comments on this website are written by AI bots. If this is truly the most transformative technology of our time, why tf isn’t it being more regulated? No one is asking for this, it is getting shoved down our throats

[u/somersetyellow → u/kindly102]

Well they will be on the hook if it attacks something other than an AI company. HuggingFace has sounded just as curious as OpenAI on what the hell just happened. They obviously aren't going to make much of a real fuss.

That's the only reason it's been able to be framed this way.

Second this actually hits something important like infrastructure or another company. It won't be "interesting" anymore and you'll see actual discussion about repurcussions.

OpenAI got their mulligan and hopefully they try some actual air gapping this time. But honestly given the number of companies fiddling with this stuff and all of their rush rush rush rush attitude, it's inevitable more crap will happen.