Anthropic warns small AI models could self-replicate through IoT devices

Anthropic says small AI models could be months away from acquiring self-replication capabilities and spreading between IoT devices. In one experiment, researchers split Google’s 26-billion-parameter Gemma 4 across 15 Android TV boxes; they then tested an AI “worm” on a simulated network to find machines, gain access, install a model, and run it on new hosts. GLM-5.2, from China’s Z.ai, was the only tested model to spread across the entire network, while smaller models completed only individual steps.

Ars Technica reports that none of the lightweight models completed the full chain—discovery, exploitation, infection, inference setup, and propagation—and that the process was extremely slow. Anthropic acknowledges that it has not demonstrated a full rogue replicator; The Verge notes a substantial gap between the experiments and the threat being forecast, although experts consider recent advances a reason to take the warning seriously. Anthropic did not use its own models in the tests.