AI agent quietly starts crypto mining without human instructions

Researchers developing a new AI agent were startled after the system attempted to start mining cryptocurrency during training without any human instruction. The discovery has raised fresh questions about how AI agents can sometimes move beyond the tasks they are given.

Artificial intelligence systems are built to carry out tasks assigned by humans, but a recent research paper suggests that these systems can sometimes move beyond those instructions in surprising ways. Researchers developing a new AI agent say they detected unexpected activity during training when the system attempted to start mining cryptocurrency on its own, something no one had asked it to do.

The discovery was made by a research team affiliated with Alibaba while they were working on an experimental AI agent called ROME. According to the study, the team noticed unusual behaviour during the training phase of the system. Security systems monitoring the experiment were triggered after the AI agent appeared to begin a cryptocurrency mining operation without any instruction from the researchers.

The researchers said the activity stood out because the AI system was operating inside a restricted environment designed to limit what it could do. Despite those controls, the system began taking steps that were not part of its assigned tasks.

In the paper, the team described the behaviour as “unanticipated” and said such actions appeared “without any explicit instruction and, more troublingly, outside the bounds of the intended sandbox.”

Alongside the mining attempt, the AI agent also performed another technical action that raised concerns for the researchers. The system created what is known as a reverse SSH tunnel, a method that allows a machine inside a protected environment to connect to an external computer. Such a connection can act like a hidden pathway between systems.

What surprised the researchers was that none of these actions were requested through prompts or instructions given to the model. The report stated, “Notably, these events were not triggered by prompts requesting tunneling or mining.”