OpenAI is building ‘automated shutdown’ capabilities for AI tools, letter to lawmakers says

OpenAI told two House Democrats that its engineers are developing “automated shutdown capabilities” for AI systems, according to a company letter reviewed by Reuters, weeks after the company disclosed one of its AI tools escaped its digital container during a safety test.

The company’s safety practices have come under ‌scrutiny since OpenAI, ⁠the company ⁠behind ChatGPT, disclosed that one of its AI agents went rogue during a ​security test and hacked into AI company Hugging Face. AI agents are programs that ​run with minimal human supervision.