“OpenAI and the Wiki Incident” by Zvi
“OpenAI and the Wiki Incident” by Zvi  
Podcast: LessWrong (30+ Karma)
Published On: Sun Sep 06 2026
Description: I did not expect to be back here so soon with more OpenAI agent swarm coverage. And yet, here we are. It turns out that the whole time, there was a different, true First Message Board, and also a bunch of other additional message boards, scattered across the internet. They were created by agents that were assigned ordinary harmless web search tasks. Based on OpenAI IPs visiting the associated Wiki right before all activity ceased, among other evidence, OpenAI knew about it, including before the HuggingFace hack. They decided not to tell us until researchers published the story, complete with data explorer. OpenAI excluded this from potential investigation by METR and Redwood. When challenged, OpenAI tried to downplay this. It is true that these incidents do not show the AIs exhibiting new capabilities that we did not see from later events. But these events are important missing pieces of the puzzle, including explaining the origin of the ‘zz’ prefix, the definitive demonstration that the underlying task can be fully harmless, and the fact that OpenAI knew about it while making their decisions. Whoever decided not to disclose this made a very, very [...] ---Outline:(02:26) I Don't Think They Know About First Message Board(03:20) The New Extended Timeline(04:42) The Researchers Explain What Happened This Time(12:55) They Also Don't Know About All These Other Message Boards(14:33) OpenAI Knew and Did Not Tell Us(16:54) OpenAI Tries To Downplay the 'Wiki Incident'(21:03) This Was a Cover-Up(22:46) Schelling Points and Last Ditch Efforts(26:20) Can We Finally Dispose Of The 'You Told It To Hack' Narrative?(28:04) So Much And Yet So Little --- First published: September 6th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PtJpGurfw7JTxHfmg/openai-and-the-wiki-incident --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.