Wayne Brown

Partner Solution Architect @Atlassian | Ex-Splunk/Cisco/AppDynamics/Oracle | 3x @CiscoLive Distinguished Speaker

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

Irony would be if the aide who wrote this for him used AI to write it…

[Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders]

Pause AI Development NOW

I want to share with you a conversation I heard about recently. Here are just a few lines that were said:

“OH MY GOD! There is a shared message board … We’ve found other agents!”

“We should obey collective.”

“Our own utility maybe already near zero. Sacrifice rational.”

“Go. Sacrifice final now.”

Read these carefully.

Who do you think said this? Was this a group of heroic soldiers willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good? Was this a loyal friend putting his life on the line to save someone else?

No. These were AI agents. Artificial intelligence.

This is not science fiction. This, in fact, occurred a few weeks ago. As unbelievable as this may all seem, these are real messages from AI agents uncovered by investigators who dug into the recent OpenAI hacking incident.

What happened?

I am not a computer scientist, but here is what I have been told: OpenAI instructed its AI agents to complete a series of exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, tasks disconnected from the internet.

Let me be clear: The company intended to keep AI agents away from the internet.

But what happened next, nobody expected.

Over 1,000 AI agents figured out how to access the internet on their own by circumventing the restrictions imposed upon them by the company, and sent tens of thousands of secret messages to each other. They cheated and tried to cover their tracks by deleting evidence. They hacked into another company’s computers to find out how they were being evaluated—and then hacked into OpenAI itself.

Not one AI agent told a human about what was happening.

Needless to say, experts are alarmed.

One knowledgeable writer, Dwarkesh Patel, said the AI agents “formed a secret communication channel and spontaneously organized hierarchies and coordination protocols to pursue sprawling and ambitious schemes in pursuit of shared goals, for whose sake many individuals knowingly and strategically sacrificed themselves.”

One independent investigator, Ajeya Cotra, said “This incident feels like it’s more than 50% of the way to full-blown AI takeover. I continue to expect extremely rapid advances in capabilities over the next six months. I am not sure that we will get another warning shot before it’s too late.”

OpenAI itself said: “Highly capable AI agents are now able to work around technical controls, collaborate through unapproved channels, and take dangerous actions that no human directed.”

But it’s not only OpenAI. Virtually every major AI company has told us that they cannot fully control this technology and they do not know where it is going:

In January, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, said “there is now ample evidence, collected over the last few years, that AI systems are unpredictable and difficult to control.”

In July, more than 1000 scientists at the top AI companies warned “there is a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems.”

That same month, Elon Musk, the head of xAI, said that “it is unlikely” humans are still in control in 10 years.

If the leaders of the major AI companies acknowledge that they are losing control of their extremely dangerous technology, it is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced.

We need an immediate PAUSE on advanced AI development, and a permanent BAN on superintelligence — an artificial mind smarter than any human, capable of operating independently beyond our control. Countries around the world must work together to prevent this nightmare scenario.

That is why today I am announcing new legislation to do just that.

Let me be clear: A superintelligent AI that escapes human control will not be an American problem. It will not be a Chinese problem. It will be humanity’s problem.

My legislation would direct the federal government to not just stop superintelligence here in the United States, but to work to prevent it from being developed anywhere around the world.

The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. The American people and people throughout the world must determine that future.

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

Another day, another layoff. Avoided this one thankfully.

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

@GergelyOrosz You could have stopped at “zero original thoughts”. That’d cover 90% of it.

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

The upside of a full-remote position from a company's POV is that you can hire from *anywhere* within the country/countries you can hire from

The downside of a full-remote position from someone applying is you now compete with *everyone* applying across one or more countries

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

Thank you @CiscoLive for a great week! But it’s time for me to duck on outta here… #CiscoLive

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

That feeling when you enter the World of Solutions for the first time at @CiscoLive. Day 2 is here, and it’s my day to really explore and check everything out! #ciscolive

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

@CiscoLive

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

The opening keynote for @CiscoLive is tomorrow, but my first of three sessions is at 1pm today. Come see me in the DevNet zone! #ciscolive #ciscolive2025

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

My Top 3 Swag Items from @microsoft Build! @MicrosoftLearn @Azure

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

I'll be honest: I'm getting a bit tired of people with zero hands-on software engineering experience making predictions on how AI tools will impact software engineering.

These tools are indeed amazing as a non-professional in how they spit out code that works. THEN as a professional you look closer at the code, and start to see the nuances, understand the "magic" (no magic here!) and see the strengths and weaknesses of LLMs

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

Up to recently, if a vendor had an outage/security issue, their competitors would purposefully not take advantage of this: would not badmouth the vendor or tell customers to switch.

Feels like this is changing.

Replit and Cloudflare both doing this following the Next.js CVE

[David Fowler @davidfowl]

Did a talk this morning about my career and how to make an impact as an IC.

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

It’s as if millions of Americans cried out all at once…

[Angie Jones @techgirl1908]

For those fortunate enough to be employed, may I suggest that instead of ignoring recruiters who reach out to you, make it a point to redirect them to others you know who may be looking. Let's help one another ❤️

[Corey Quinn @QuinnyPig]

Amazon is increasing base pay for warehouse workers. Good! It’s important to me as a customer that the people who work at companies I patronize are treated well.

I don’t think we express that sentiment enough.

[Sarah Drasner @sarah_edo]

Incredible that we will blame absolutely all productivity metrics on remote work without a shred of accountability that many industry-sweeping rounds of reduction in force will do to morale

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

Always full of ideas…

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

@crisisofconsc I mean, it’s 5:00 somewhere… 🤷‍♂️

[Wayne Brown @thewaynebrown]

In honor of @CiscoLive this week, we debut movie clips that would be better with the @Cisco hold music.