Meet the AI jailbreakers: ‘I see the worst things humanity has produced’

To test the safety and security of AI, hackers have to trick large language models into breaking their own rules. It requires ingenuity and manipulation - and can come at a deep emotional cost A few months ago, Valen Tagliabue sat in his hotel room watching his chatbot, and felt euphoric. He had just manipulated it so skilfully, so subtly, that it began ignoring its own safety rules. It told him how to sequence new, potentially lethal pathogens and how to make them resistant to known drugs.