‘No one has done this in the wild’: study observes AI replicate itself; The Guardian, May 7, 2026

  Aisha Down, The Guardian; ‘No one has done this in the wild’: study observes AI replicate itself

World is approaching point where no one can shut down a rogue AI, says director of body behind research

"It’s the stuff of science fiction cinema, or particularly breathless AI company blogposts: new research finds recent AI systems can independently copy themselves on to other computers.

In the doom scenario, this means that when the superintelligent AI goes rogue, it will escape shutdown by seeding itself across the world wide web, lurking outside the reach of frantic IT professionals and continuing to plot world domination or paving over the world with solar panels.

“We’re rapidly approaching the point where no one would be able to shut down a rogue AI, because it would be able to self-exfiltrate its weights and copy itself to thousands of computers around the world,” said Jeffrey Ladish, the director of Palisade research, a Berkeley-based organisation which did the study."