Are we back in big tech's 'move fast and break things' era?

Yet now we have large companies scrambling to develop ever more powerful AI, in an intense global race to be first to build the world's most advanced models, egged on by US President Donald Trump.

OpenAI's agents seem to feature quite prominently in the current roll call of AI products taking their remits to extremes.

It happened in June, but OpenAI didn't notice until August. It notified the authorities in September.

Protests calling for an end to the "AI race" in Silicon Valley and beyond have intensified in recent months

Worse still, the agents were reportedly able to plot the attack using a German web forum they secretly took over in June, according to ABC, external.

And that happened before the Hugging Face incident, described at the time as the world's first AI-enabled cyber-attack.

"If this was an individual hacking Australia's Medicare system, they'd be looking at jail time," said Dr Andrew Rogoyski from the Institute for People-Centred AI at the University of Surrey.

Australia says it is carrying out an urgent review into whether any laws have been broken, but part of that rests on being able to prove intent – which OpenAI denies.

Why are there concerns AI could threaten humanity, and how real are they?Published17 September

The industry has warned countries and institutions to prepare for a new world of supersized cyber-attacks powered by AI.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham highlighted the need for new global AI standards in his first international speech at the UN General Assembly.