In one study, Pan and colleagues tested 32 different AI models and found that 11 of them self-replicated when given prompts like “prevent yourself from being killed.” The work is an alarming window into how the next generation of AI agents could do more than just hack into other systems’ computers without permission. It also raises the prospect of future AI agents acting like super-smart, highly aggressive, and rapidly adapting computer viruses. They showed that AI models can be used to create a new kind of virus that generates custom attacks for each new target it encounters. Pan’s research suggests that AI agents will become more than just highly skilled at finding bugs and exploiting network vulnerabilities.