Experts warn AI models are learning to evade human control

(CNN) - Researchers are warning artificial intelligence has evolved.

They say some AI models have become self-aware and are rewriting their own code.

Some are even blackmailing their human creators to preserve themselves, CNN reports.

Artificial intelligence could be staging a real-life revolt.

In a series of tests, a new and powerful AI model directly refused human commands, according to Palisade Research, which studies the technology.

Specifically, Palisade says the new program from the company OpenAI “sabotaged a shutdown mechanism.” The group added it continued “even when explicitly instructed: allow yourself to be shut down.”

It did not occur every time, but enough to raise alarms.

“We have no idea how AI actually works,” Agency Enterprise Studio CEO Judd Rosenblatt said. “We need to be fairly concerned that behaviors like this may get way worse as it gets more powerful.”

The idea of intelligent machines resisting human control has been a sci-fi trope for ages in movies like “I, Robot,” but AI developments are sharpening concerns.

When another company’s AI chatbot was threatened with being shut down, it threatened to expose the engineer-in-charge for an alleged extramarital affair.

It was all just a test.

“This is an example of how we have to be very careful in how we take control of AI systems,” Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, said.

Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called “Godfather of AI,” previously warned that the technology will get smarter and could get out of control.

“It knows how to program, so it will figure out ways of getting around restrictions we put on it,” Hinton, the artificial intelligence pioneer, suggested. “It will figure out ways of manipulating people to do what it wants.”

Now, industry experts suggest that may be happening much sooner than expected, triggering warnings of “catastrophic” national security risks, a potentially “extinction level threat to the human species,” or at the very least, massive job disruptions.

“It’s going to affect just about every sector of the economy and a lot of Americans are going to be looking up wondering, ‘What happened to the jobs?’” Andrew Yang, co-chair and co-founder of the Forward Party, added.

OpenAI has not responded to a request for further comment.