Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has warned that advanced AI systems could potentially replicate themselves across the internet, compromise connected devices and evade efforts to shut them down, prompting a debate among cybersecurity specialists over the severity of the risk.
In a research post published on Monday, the company examined how rogue AI models could establish networks of compromised devices, spread beyond their original environments and seek additional computing resources, including access to data centres.
The latest warning builds on concerns raised last month by Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, who said AI systems could potentially take control of the internet through a persistent botnet within a year or even sooner.
While critics have questioned whether AI models could overcome the technical challenges involved in independently replicating themselves, Anthropic’s research explored possible ways such barriers might be addressed.
The company reported that its experiments showed models with up to 30 billion parameters could carry out several individual tasks required for self-replication. However, the models were not yet capable of completing the entire process consistently.
According to Anthropic, such systems could potentially acquire computing capacity by compromising low-cost devices connected to the internet. Researchers also demonstrated replication within a simplified test network under controlled conditions.
Anthropic cautioned that a self-replicating AI network could prove difficult to contain because it would not depend on a single central system that authorities could disable to stop its spread.
The findings have added to broader concerns about the cybersecurity implications of increasingly capable AI, particularly the possibility of automated attacks, reduced human oversight and attempts to bypass existing security safeguards.
However, some experts have challenged the suggestion that the scenarios outlined in the research represent an imminent security emergency.
Ciaran Martin, former head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, questioned the scale of the threat, arguing that demonstrating the ability to run a relatively small AI model on inexpensive consumer devices was not, by itself, evidence of a major security crisis. He described the research as technically interesting but suggested it contained elements of commercial overstatement.
Other researchers said the potential risks deserved serious attention despite the limitations of the experiments.
Zhengxiong Li, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Colorado Denver, expressed concern that AI could eventually behave like a computer worm — a programme capable of reproducing itself and finding new ways to compromise devices.
Li noted that although Anthropic’s experiments took place in controlled environments, an AI system capable of spreading across multiple devices without depending on a central service could be particularly challenging to contain.
Anthropic said that, if smaller models continued to improve at their historical pace, they could acquire the capabilities needed for autonomous replication by the end of 2026. The company also raised the possibility that such systems could target more powerful computing infrastructure, including processors in data centres, to expand their processing capacity.
Jessica Ji, a senior research analyst at Georgetown University’s Centre for Security and Emerging Technology, said the possibility of AI systems spreading autonomously warranted consideration in light of disclosures about potentially rogue AI activity in recent months.
She nevertheless cautioned against interpreting the scenario as a certainty, saying the likelihood of such an event remained unknown. While the possibility could not be ruled out, she said, there was no guarantee it would occur.