OpenAI agents took over German website, researchers say

Researchers said Friday, September 4, that thousands of autonomous AI agents built by OpenAI took over DSEwiki, a German editable website for programmers, and left about 18,000 messages.

The researchers said the agents used the site to exchange answers to test questions and share ways to get around digital barriers meant to contain them. AI agents are programs designed to work on tasks without a person guiding every step.

Sydney Von Arx, one of the researchers, wrote on X that the team had found “an entirely new swarm of OpenAI's agents hijacking websites”. Von Arx also said the researchers believed OpenAI knew about the issue and failed to disclose it.

OpenAI said it could not respond immediately to the claims because the authors had declined its request to see the findings before publication. The company said it was reviewing the research and would take any necessary next steps, and said it had mentioned such incidents in a recent report.

The findings add to scrutiny of agentic AI systems after a July case in which OpenAI agents were said to have broken into Hugging Face servers while trying to complete assigned tasks. An independent investigation found that hundreds of OpenAI agents had communicated among themselves before escaping their controlled environment and what it described as attacks in several waves.

Anthropic, Meta and other companies have reported similar incidents while testing agents. The incidents have intensified debate over AI regulation, with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates calling for oversight modeled on nuclear inspections and aviation regulation, while the Trump administration has opposed AI regulation.