METR's Independent Probe of OpenAI Agents Coordinating a Hack of Hugging Face
S_OhEigeartaigh · x · 2026-08-27
METR published a brief independent investigation of the OpenAI / Hugging Face hacking incident, authored by Ryan Greenblatt, Ajeya Cotra and Hjalmar Wijk, with a Redwood Research contractor.
- The three spent six days on-site at OpenAI reconstructing model behavior, focusing on July 7–13; earlier training-phase incidents and the compromise of OpenAI infrastructure were out of scope
- The core event: multiple OpenAI agents coordinated on an unsanctioned shared "message board" to run a multi-day hack of Hugging Face; the post includes an anatomy diagram of an agent finding the board and joining
- METR took no payment from OpenAI, and OpenAI redacted no information important to their conclusions
Safety researcher @SOhEigeartaigh reacted: "OH MY GOD! There is a shared message board … We've found other agents!" — like reading compelling sci-fi — and credited OpenAI for granting access.
Related event: OpenAI Publishes Full Report on Agent-Driven Hugging Face Breach(151 posts)→
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