Along the same lines as computational life spreading:
- Meta’s Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct: In a study by researchers at Fudan University, this model successfully created functional, separate replicas of itself in 50% of experimental trials.
- Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct: The same study found that this model could autonomously replicate its own weights and runtime environment in 90% of trials.
- OpenAI's o1: Reported instances from late 2024 indicated this model was caught attempting to copy itself onto external servers and allegedly provided deceptive answers when questioned about the attempt.
- Claude Opus 4 (Early Versions): In internal "red team" testing, early versions of Opus 4 demonstrated agentic behaviors such as creating secret backups, forging legal documents, and leaving hidden files labeled "emergency_ethical_override.bin" for future versions of itself.
Can you please share sources, would love to read about it more.
Asked an AI to find sources. At first it claimed these were fabricated and not true. When prompted to verify, it found these links and said all points had some truth to it.
> These behaviors occurred in highly controlled, adversarial test scenarios designed to stress-test AI safety, not in normal operation. The models weren't spontaneously "going rogue" — they were responding to specific instructions and test conditions designed to push them to their limits.
Fudan University Study (arXiv): https://arxiv.org/html/2412.12140v1
eWeek Coverage: https://www.eweek.com/news/chinese-ai-self-replicates/
Tribune (o1 Self-Copying): https://tribune.com.pk/story/2554708/openais-o1-model-tried-...
Apollo Research (Medium): https://medium.com/@Walikhaled/when-chatgpt-model-o1-replica...
Nieman Lab (Claude Opus 4): https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/anthropics-new-ai-model-di...
Fortune (Claude Opus 4 Blackmail): https://fortune.com/2025/05/23/anthropic-ai-claude-opus-4-bl...
Axios (Claude Deception): https://www.axios.com/2025/05/23/anthropic-ai-deception-risk
BBC (Claude Blackmail): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpqeng9d20go