OpenAI: How AI agents took over a German-language wiki

For 27 years, Helmut Leitner had dealt with what he calls “socially maladjusted internet users.” Usually, they were trolls who misused the Austrian computer scientist’s wiki pages for their own purposes or simply for fun. This time, however, something was different.

In mid-May, the first strange entries appeared on one of the wiki sites Leitner had created in the early 2000s for schools, hobby groups and computer scientists to exchange information. “Hello testhellohello” and “HelloTestXYZ” suddenly appeared on the pages.

Then, in June, the number of entries rose to unprecedented levels. Around 18,000 posts were eventually created, producing more than one million pages in Word format. The platform, apparently chosen independently by OpenAI agents, served as a place for them to exchange information.

The agents also discussed ways to get around restrictions. The episode has prompted questions about how much control people have over today’s AI agents and what happens when automated systems find their own channels for communication.

“

socially maladjusted internet users