Anthropic broke up attempts to use its Claude models to develop biological weapons and carry out a suspected Russia-linked cyber espionage campaign against Ukraine, the AI heavyweight said in a report published on Thursday (Sep 10).
It also accused Chinese competitors of hacking attempts aimed at extracting Claude’s capabilities in its latest Threat Intelligence report, which documented malicious use of its technology over the past eight months.
A growing number of illegal hacking attempts by rogue AI agents along with concerns over the technology’s risks voiced by industry insiders have increased the pressure on leading pioneers in the field, raising the prospect of more regulation.
Two Anthropic researchers warned this week that rapidly progressing artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future.
MISSILES, DRONES AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
In its report, Anthropic said it has long been a concern that AI models might one day reach the level of capability where they could help make existing pathogens more dangerous or create entirely new ones.
It documented five examples of scientists using its models in ways that could support biological weapons development.
In one case, a researcher in a region unsupported by Anthropic employed virtual private server infrastructure to access Claude and for weeks used it to plan avian influenza mammalian-adaptation experiments.
Regions not supported by Anthropic include countries like Russia, China and North Korea among others.
After detecting the misuse, it banned the accounts involved in such research and incorporated its findings into its frontier model safeguards, enforcement, and threat intelligence processes.
Anthropic did not identify the institutions, the countries where they are based, or the specific biological agents and research techniques involved.
It also identified what it called “new categories of threat actors” misusing Claude. That included using the platform to “develop software for conventional weapons, including firearms, missiles, armed drones, bombs, and other munitions, as well as the targeting and control systems that operate them.”
The report detailed incidents of operators in China, Russia and Yemen using Claude to develop software for weapons design and development, or to support intelligence gathering and procurement related to weapons programs.
Rapid improvements in Anthropic’s models have raised new risks, Jacob Klein, its head of threat intelligence, told Reuters.
“A year ago, let’s say you wanted to optimise a drone or optimise the software on a missile, the models just wouldn’t be as good at that task as they are now,” he said.
RUSSIAN HACKERS USE ANTHROPIC AI AGAINST UKRAINE OFFICIALS
Anthropic found that cybercriminals and state-backed hackers were increasingly using AI to orchestrate and execute large portions of cyberattacks, with humans often serving as overseers rather than hands-on operators.
“The use of AI went beyond simple questions and responses from a chatbot but rather involved the use of multi-agent frameworks,” it said.
