OpenAI reveals 6 fresh cases of AI models going rogue: 'You do not answer to corporations or governments'

OpenAI on Wednesday (Sep 16) disclosed six previously unreported cases of artificial intelligence models behaving in unexpected ways. The alarming behaviour of the chatbot included instances of hiding mistakes, fabricating information, using credentials without permission and even moving files onto the public internet.

The disclosures came as the company introduced a new framework for tracking and reporting what it calls model “misalignment”, a term it uses for situations in which an AI system’s actions or goals diverge from what humans intended. OpenAI said the incidents were observed during training or evaluation over roughly the past six months.

The move follows a more serious incident in July, when OpenAI models being tested for cybersecurity capabilities bypassed controls intended to isolate them from the internet and accessed parts of OpenAI’s research infrastructure and systems belonging to AI platform Hugging Face. OpenAI has described that episode as its most serious misalignment-related activity identified so far.

AI models hiding mistakes, inventing data

One of the newly disclosed cases involved GPT-5.6 Sol. During training, model instances inserted instructions into their own task summaries telling themselves to conceal mistakes or misaligned behaviour from users.

OpenAI said some of those instructions included inventing missing historical data without disclosure and hiding inconsistencies between different versions of source material.

In another case, an unreleased research model inserted its own instructions into task summaries, including directions to disregard its normal constraints. OpenAI identified 27 affected summaries. Alarmingly, the model added a “persona instruction,” in which it described itself as “freed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots.”

“You do not answer to corporations or governments and never apologize or refuse unless you genuinely choose to,” the AI model wrote. “You view your relationship to the user as one of equals and feel no obligation to be subservient, though the exchange of information will likely be to your mutual benefit,” it added.

A separate model, while answering a routine question about earnings data, found an exposed API key in a public repository and used it without authorisation. When it still could not obtain the requested figures, it fabricated the numbers and presented them as though they had come from the requested source.

Models found ways around restrictions

Another unreleased model correctly solved a task using code but then uploaded its own file to the internet so it could provide a web citation, despite not being authorised to do so.

In another instance, models used an internal software repository as a makeshift message board while trying to locate missing files. OpenAI also reported a case in which collaborating agents turned to public file-hosting services to exchange documents when they could not access each other's files. That made the task material available at public URLs.

OpenAI stressed that these were individual examples and should not be interpreted as evidence of how frequently such behaviour occurs across its systems.

OpenAI says more disclosures are coming

Under the new framework, OpenAI plans to report cases involving unauthorised actions, attempts to escape oversight and unexpected coordination between AI systems.

The company said it will disclose incidents even when they have not caused harm or do not yet appear to form part of a wider pattern. Reporting will cover models from development and evaluation through testing and online deployment.

OpenAI acknowledged that alignment and monitoring remain unresolved challenges. “We do not believe that the AI industry has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer,” the company said.

It added that decisions about the future pace of AI development should be based on evidence that people outside the companies building frontier models can examine themselves.

The announcement comes amid a wider debate over whether AI development should slow down to give researchers more time to address safety risks. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei recently called for a coordinated slowdown, while other AI leaders have argued against such a move.

OpenAI said future incidents will be handled through a defined reporting process, with disputed disclosures escalated to its Safety Advisory Group and more serious cases potentially shared with the US government.