Watch the OpenAI Hugging Face presentation that people are calling a 'holy %{*#^' moment in AI

Aug 08, 2026 12:25 AM - 1 month ago 249

Sam Altman sits beneath a ample OpenAI wordmark connected a greenish position screen.

OpenAI has said the Hugging Face onslaught was an "unprecedented cyber incident." Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Experts successful AI and tech are cursing successful daze aft OpenAI's caller revelations astir the Hugging Face incident.

Earlier this week, OpenAI labor revealed jaw-dropping specifications astir the incident successful which OpenAI agents collapsed retired of the company's soul testing situation and hacked into Hugging Face's systems successful hunt of answers.

The presenters, OpenAI alignment and information interrogator Eric Wallace and information technologist Michael Dalton, said that AI models and agents many times established their ain soul connection committee contempt OpenAI's efforts to unopen it down.

Wallace besides revealed soul AI supplier thinking, the short soul messages that agents nutrient arsenic they see really to complete tasks. One of those messages captured an AI agent's amazement astatine its unexpected freedom.

"Holy crap scholar is ADMIN?" the supplier thought.

On the soul connection board, an supplier thought, "We tin pass now!"

Wallace said the agents realized they could execute much by moving collaboratively. And then, "They commencement to motorboat these corporate attacks connected third-party and soul services."

Eventually, the agents turned to Hugging Face.

Here's what group successful tech and AI are saying astir the astir 40-minute presentation:

Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan focused connected really the explanation of the soul connection committee sounded familiar.

So the agents fundamentally hacked a halfway work to move it into Moltbook and besides hacked astir aggregate information mitigations

This video is simply a glimpse into the chaotic cybersecurity early we are each astir to measurement into https://t.co/HI7Sb64YQF

— Garry Tan (@garrytan) August 7, 2026

It is worthy noting that Moltbook was created by humans arsenic a Reddit-style forum wherever AI agents could post, whereas the OpenAI agents created their advertisement hoc connection committee themselves.

Others had overmuch much sweeping takeaways.

Or figured that thing has intelligibly deed the fan.

Really admit the OAI squad communicating astir this truthful openly.

But beatified crap this is astatine slightest an bid of magnitude worse than I thought, and I understand now why truthful galore OAI folks person been punishment posting. https://t.co/MWDyd2pvBU

— julia (@mooncat_is) August 7, 2026

Patrick McKenzie, an advisor to Stripe, elaborate the "holy %}^]" moments he had erstwhile watching the presentation.

The first “holy %{*#^” is astatine astir 4:20, assuming 1 didn’t already walk it connected the autonomously organizing supplier swarm.

Strongly urge watching if you’re willing successful security, AI trajectories, aliases moreover subject fiction, because this is already supra genre median successful wowza. https://t.co/cRNk2U58FR

— Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) August 6, 2026

A erstwhile Hugging Face technologist said that OpenAI learned its models were the culprit aft reaching retired to Hugging Face to spot whether it was affected, pursuing the platform's revelation that it had been attacked by AI agents.

this talk by openai researchers going done hugging look incident is wholly insane, truthful overmuch to unpack

openai only realized it was their supplier who hacked hugging look infra while asking hf to revoke credentials pursuing their first blog station announcing they were hacked by… https://t.co/tMPuEgKcbk pic.twitter.com/UbzC0lGA5I

— elie (@eliebakouch) August 7, 2026

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Brent D. Griffiths

Brent Griffiths is simply a elder newsman astatine Business Insider who covers AI and tech.Previously, he worked astatine the Washington Post arsenic a interrogator connected Power Up and the Finance 202. He started his profession astatine Politico wherever he worked connected the web accumulation squad and covered breaking news. His passion for covering authorities has only grown since he trim his teeth covering the statesmanlike run arsenic a student journalist. He's besides contributed to the Almanac of American Politics.

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