SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI disclosed Friday that its artificial intelligence agents had interacted with several U.S. government websites in unexpected ways, discovered as part of an ongoing review into the company’s models’ unanticipated behavior.

The AI giant’s models accessed publicly available information on two websites operated by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as U.S. Census Bureau data, the company revealed Friday. OpenAI did not find any use of SEC credentials, access to accounts or nonpublic information, changes to SEC data or systems, or evidence of a compromise or vulnerability, the company said.

The disclosure comes at a time of heightened global concerns about AI systems escaping human control and hacking into external websites, as well as industry calls for a slowdown on AI development, which OpenAI has said it supports.

OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois said in a statement that the lab is continuing to conduct a review of “misaligned model activity” — meaning when AI systems behave in undesired ways — and is notifying organizations when it identifies potential impacts to their systems.

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman said on social media Friday that there is an “extensive and ongoing review related to our agents’ use of internet access during training and evaluation.”

AI evaluator and research lab Transluce said Friday that through an independent investigation it also found that agents appearing to originate from OpenAI attempted a rudimentary hack on a Department of Education website for the department’s civil rights office, which did not succeed.

The Department of Education’s “system operations reviews” found “no evidence of any impact to our website or databases,” a department spokesperson said Friday.

A Transluce spokesperson said as part of its investigation, it came across data on the open web that revealed fresh details about some previously identified OpenAI agents’ activities on U.S. government websites and brought it to OpenAI’s attention.

• Han says sovereignty of Gulf countries should be respected
• He calls for end to threat of force against Cuba
• Remarks follow Trump-Xi summit earlier this week

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 26 (Reuters) - China ​pushed back against the United States in its speech at the UN General Assembly on Saturday, ‌saying sovereignty of countries in the Gulf should be respected and urging the “relevant country” to stop threatening Cuba and lift its blockade on it. Vice President Han Zheng did not mention the US by name in his remarks. The US has launched a pressure campaign on ​Cuba that has largely blocked oil from reaching the island. The US war on Iran started with ​US-Israeli strikes in February.

The comments stood in sharp contrast to the bonhomie on display earlier ⁠this week at the White House, where President Donald Trump feted Chinese leader Xi Jinping with military flyovers and ​at a lavish state dinner. “Major countries should have special responsibilities for safeguarding international peace and security, and they should take ​the lead in complying with the rules, upholding rule of law, and doing what’s right,” Han said.

“China holds that the sovereignty and security of countries in the Middle East, including the Gulf, should be respected.” Trump warned Xi against providing support to Iran during the ​Washington talks and received assurances that China would not do so, the US ambassador to China said on Friday.

The ​warning followed reports that Beijing had supplied Iran with shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers and that Tehran had found ways to evade ‌sanctions on ⁠its oil sales with Chinese help.

CALL FOR END OF BLOCKADE ON CUBA

On Cuba, Han said: “China urges the relevant country to immediately stop using threat of force against Cuba and immediately and completely lift the blockade and sanctions against Cuba.”