Silicon Valley is grappling with a flood of bugs found by AI

By Kate Conger, New York Times SAN FRANCISCO — On Oct. 21, Fouad Matin, who leads OpenAI’s cyber-preparedness and safety efforts, had planned to spend the evening with friends to celebrate his birthday. Instead, he was running on about two hours of sleep as he juggled efforts to patch two critical security vulnerabilities that had been discovered by artificial intelligence, which threatened to upend much of the internet. The work had entangled security researchers from startups and tech giants, as well as U.S. and international government officials. RELATED: California’s artificial intelligence bill has gaps. Lawmakers plan to fill them More bugs that had been found by AI were also in Matin’s queue, and they needed fixes. OpenAI has several teams devoted to cybersecurity, and it is pouring significant computing power into finding and fixing problems, Matin said. AI “really opens this Pandora’s box of vulnerabilities,” he said. AI companies have a responsibility to track down and fix pr