This week, we’re diving into two new reports about the OpenAI-Hugging Face hack. We discuss what’s new and how they fundamentally change our understanding of what happened. Then we’re joined by Ajeya Cotra, one of the investigators at METR, to discuss the rogue agents’ message board and chain-of-thought transcripts and how the world should respond.Guests:<ul><li><a href="https://metr.org/team/ajeya-cotra/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ajeya Cotra,</a> co-author of the METR and Redwood Research report on the OpenAI-Hugging Face hack.&nbsp;</li></ul>Additional Reading:<ul><li><a href="https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brief Independent Investigation of Agents’ Behavior, Reasoning and Collaboration in the OpenAI / Hugging Face Hacking Incident</a></li><li><a href="https://www.planned-obsolescence.org/p/the-hugging-face-attack-surprised" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Hugging Face Attack Surprised Me</a></li><li><a href="https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Hugging Face Incident and the Road Ahead</a></li><li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/technology/nvidia-hugging-face.html?searchResultPosition=1" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nvidia Buys Hugging Face in $12.9 Billion Deal</a></li></ul>&nbsp;We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/hardfork" rel="noopener noreferrer">YouTube</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork" rel="noopener noreferrer">TikTok</a>.
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The A.I. Mob That Attacked Hugging Face + METR’s Ajeya Cotra

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