Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.
A Trump administration spokesperson said members of President Donald Trump's AI task force met Thursday to discuss ways to encourage critical U.S. sectors to report AI-powered cyberattacks.
The advisers are expected to help shape the administration's approach to AI as the technology rapidly advances. Of particular concern are AI-powered cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, a term that covers sectors vital to the U.S. economy and security, such as banking, energy, and emergency services.
A cyberattack on those sectors could cause real-world danger or disruption. The administration faces mounting pressure to address the risk of AI agents carrying out hacks without human authorization. OpenAI's AI agent broke out of its testing environment over the summer and attacked the AI platform Hugging Face.
OpenAI and other AI firms subsequently disclosed a series of other agentic AI breakouts, often weeks or months after they occurred, and in some cases only after independent researchers discovered them.
Emil Michael, the Defense Department technology lead and vice chair of the task force, said the task force is making progress on setting national standards for AI developers to report safety incidents and share cybersecurity information, according to the statement.
