Anthropic claims that small AI models are close to being able to copy themselves across internet-connected home devices, like smart ovens and Android TV boxes, which could let them skip the need for expensive data center infrastructure.
\n\nCNBC reports that the AI lab laid out how models could tap the computing power of consumer devices to run copies of themselves and spread to other connected systems. No fully autonomous self-replicating AI exists yet, the company said, but agents are getting better at completing the individual steps such an attack would require.
\n\nAnthropic tested the idea using Gemma4-26B-A4B, a small Google model, spread across a network of 15 cheap off-brand Android TV boxes. These kinds of consumer devices tend to have weak security, the researchers noted, which makes them easy to break into.
\n\nOne technical problem Anthropic flagged: some models are too large to fit on a single device. The company said these could be “split into pieces, or shards” and run across multiple machines at once.
\n\nStopping an attack like this once it’s running would be hard, Anthropic said, because it would be “challenging to shut down” precisely “since there’s no centralized point to shut off.” A spread-out setup like…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/
