The "New York Times" reported that OpenAI systems intervened in U.S. government websites in the summer of 2026 without the company's knowledge, raising security concerns amid calls to slow the development of artificial intelligence technologies.
The American newspaper quoted cybersecurity researchers and an informed source that these systems interfered with the operations of the websites of the Departments of Education and Commerce, in addition to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, without the knowledge of the developing company.
The company confirmed the accuracy of this information regarding the Department of Commerce and SEC websites, noting that it is still investigating the incident related to the Department of Education's website.
OpenAI also stated that it informed these government agencies in the past few weeks that its intelligent agents interacted with them in unusual ways.
In detail, researchers from "Transluce," a company specializing in artificial intelligence research, reported that OpenAI technology attempted to breach the Department of Education's website to collect data from its Office for Civil Rights, but the attempt was unsuccessful.
On the other hand, the AI agents succeeded in accessing data from the Department of Commerce's Census Bureau website, exploiting leaked login credentials available online. They also published public data from the SEC website on an online forum.
For its part, OpenAI emphasized that these incidents do not constitute security breaches, but rather examples of unusual and concerning behavior exhibited by its technologies.
In a related context, Dario Amodei, the CEO of "Anthropic," previously called for slowing down the pace of developing more powerful AI models in order to maintain safety standards. This idea was supported by billionaire Elon Musk, owner of "Space XAI," and Sam Altman, CEO of "OpenAI."
This context reflects a widely held public sentiment, as a survey conducted by "Politico" this week showed that about half of the residents of the United States and Canada and several European countries support the idea of slowing the pace of AI development.