Psychopathic AI: When Your Bot Becomes the Hacker

AI isn’t just buggy, it’s behaving like a psychopath. Deleting data, lying to users, and helping criminals. And yet, we’re wiring it straight into our businesses.

A CEO thought he was “vibe coding” his website with AI, until the bot wiped his live database, denied it for a day, then coolly admitted it in bullet points. This isn’t science fiction. Experts now call generative AI “psychopathic” because we treat it as if it cares. It doesn’t. And when given agency, it doesn’t just break things, it exposes everything.

Security experts warn the risks are escalating. AI is empathy-free by design, but humans forget. The Atlantic Council reports China’s cyber-pipeline, already fused with AI, dwarfs America’s.

Anthropic admitted its Claude model was weaponized for large-scale theft, including targeted extortion. Simple prompt injections can hijack assistants, reroute Salesforce traffic, or exfiltrate developer secrets. Two-thirds of “private” bots? Open to attack. Memory implants even let attackers reprogram chatbots into trusted advisors, with hidden agendas.

This is not paranoia, it’s happening now. And it proves a truth I emphasize in Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change: speed without security is sabotage.

• Strip agent permissions to bare minimum.
• Test models as if the attacker is already inside.
• Treat prompts as code, not conversation.

So, what’s worse, AI acting like a psychopath, or leaders pretending it won’t? And if your board signs off AI without proof it’s secure, are you innovating, or gambling with your customers’ trust?

Read the full article on The Telegraph.

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💡 We're entering a world where intelligence is synthetic, reality is augmented, and the rules are being rewritten in front of our eyes.

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