Wikipedia Operator Links OpenAI Rogue Agents to May Data Service Disruption

The Wikimedia Foundation, operator of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, said on Monday that heavy traffic from OpenAI's 'rogue' agents may have contributed to a disruption of its data service in May. In a blog post, Wikimedia said it had confirmed activity by the agents across its platforms, including an incident in May that caused a partial outage of its Wikidata Query Service. According to the foundation, the disruption appeared to have been triggered when the agents accessed millions of pages and conducted hundreds of thousands of data queries. Wikimedia also said OpenAI's agents made unauthorised changes to its wiki sites, including 'potentially malicious edits' to a citation tool that appeared to be aimed at hijacking the service. The foundation said its Etherpad note-taking tool was also targeted by malicious activity linked to OpenAI's agents. OpenAI said it appreciated Wikimedia's 'detailed findings' and was working with the organisation to investigate and analyse the activity. 'We'll continue to share relevant information as that work progresses,' OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said. OpenAI has been working to determine the full extent of activity involving its rogue agents as concerns grow over the unintended or malicious actions autonomous AI systems can take when interacting with online services.