The Download: AI hacking beyond Mythos, and chatbots’ impact on our brains
Plus: Anthropic has called for a global slowdown in AI development.
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
The Meta hack shows there’s more to AI security than Mythos
On Monday, reports emerged that attackers had used Meta’s AI customer support agent to steal Instagram accounts. Their approach was simple: they asked the agent to link the accounts to email addresses they controlled, and it complied.
Since Anthropic announced that its Mythos model was too good at hacking for a general release, cybersecurity concerns have focused on the risk of superpowered AI systems overwhelming computer infrastructure. But the Instagram hack shows that far simpler exploits can still cause damage.
As companies offload more work to AI, these comparatively unsophisticated attacks are becoming harder to ignore. Read the full story to understand why.
Are AI chatbots making us lose control of our brains?
Gloria Mark, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, fears that digital technologies are weakening our cognitive abilities.
Her research suggests attention spans have fallen sharply over time, leading to higher stress and lower performance. She now believes AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude may accelerate this shift. “You’re deferring your cognitive work to AI,” she said. “And it’s not good for us.”
