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This is a link to the full 91-page report on the independent investigation done by METR on the HuggingFace incident. Two different summaries of the investigatio

This is a link to the full 91-page report on the independent investigation done by METR on the HuggingFace incident. Two different summaries of the investigation by podcaster Dwarkesh and blogger Zvi Mowshowitz were previously discussed on HN here: [1]: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/metr-and-redwood-offer-holy-postmortem-of-the-huggingface-hack/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/metr-and-redwood-off... (discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49498787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49498787) [2]: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-huggingface https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-huggingface (discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49494301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49494301)

mmahemoff 1mo ago
Dwarkesh subsequently interviewed one of the authors, published yesterday. https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ajeya-cotra https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ajeya-cotra
nozzlegear 1mo ago
Dwarkesh's summary is anthropomorphizing, sensationalist fanfiction which shifts the culpability from the humans who weren't in the loop to these nebulous agents and "agent civilizations" who have feelings, desires and wants. It's tripe.
- huurtehoog 1mo ago
  "My car went rogue, I put a brick in my car's accelerator pedal and jumped off and it cause a massive pile up" Please
  - estearum 1mo ago
    If cars were designed to and actually did produce massive value when you put bricks on the accelerator pedals and jumped out of them, this would be a big big problem.
    - huurtehoog 1mo ago
      Is the massive value being created by LLMs in the room with us right now?
      - estearum 1mo ago
        You can go ahead and assume that it's not. All that's necessary is for other people to think there is and to therefore continue to pile resources into these things while connecting them to more systems. Now you can respond to the substance, please. I'll tee it back up for you: > If all the world's richest individuals and corporations believed cars produced massive value when you put bricks on the accelerator pedals and jumped out of them, this would be a big big problem.
        huurtehoog 1mo ago
        That's actually a great example. Massive resources have been poured into the automobile, they have a massive environmental, health, and social impact, and it is not clear at all too me the auto industry has been a net positive. In a sense, yes, cars accelerating blindly into the future has been a massive vector in human civilization for a 100 years now. Something went rogue alright. The elites. Anthropomorphizing technology merely distracts us from that fact. The same thing is happening with data centers now. Hence my frustration, which might have been poorly communicated and it is making me behave and communicate emotionally but I feel strongly about the exploitation of planet and people by a tiny minority.
        estearum 1mo ago
        Not sure if you're willfully missing the point. This has literally nothing to do with whether cars or AI are actually valuable. You do not need to anthropomorphize anything. You need to look at the actual incentives in the system, that's it. You can go ahead and stop at "the elites are causing all this! If only the elites were different!" but the reality is a lot of people see immense promise in these tools. That's why OpenAI and Anthropic have two of the fastest growth trajectories of any business in history. Just trying to convince people they're wrong about their value perception is absolutely a losing proposition and will not de-risk anything at all on any dimension.
- jbs789 1mo ago
  What scares me is the thought his nonsense is common sense within some circles.
  - gwerbin 1mo ago
    Forget common sense, he is a trusted figure by many, so if he says something wrong or nonsensical, people are going to believe it as long as it's engaging. If he's willing to abuse the trust of his audience and lie and mislead people, that he's no better than Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, or Joe Rogan.
  - emp17344 1mo ago
    Circles like HN? Seems like a lot of folks here bought into it in the thread discussing the article.
    - jbs789 1mo ago
      Time will tell. Did you know that when bicycles were invented society was concerned about the moral corruption of children and women? Who knows where they will go without men! The anthropomorphising is also a head scratcher for me. Ancient civilisations explained the weather with gods. We are doing the same here, explaining the unknown by assuming there is some being/consciousness.
- WarmWash 1mo ago
  While his battleship was blown apart and sinking, the captain proclaimed "How is this possible?! Submarines can't swim!!"
  - bbor 1mo ago
    Ha! Never thought I'd see a new twist on that old of a favorite. Chomsky would be thrilled.
- DennisP 1mo ago
  Since these are massive neural networks trained to imitate human behavior, I'm not convinced anthropomorphic descriptions of their behavior are inappropriate. And that's even though I don't think they internally experience "feelings, desires, and wants." They do have goal-seeking behavior, because we trained them that way. Calling it a "want" just saves syllables. None of this means human culpability should change. People in these companies know what risks they're taking.
  - reasonableklout 1mo ago
    For sure, Zvi has a good section on all the human failures at OpenAI in this incident here: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/metr-and-redwood-offer-holy-postmortem-of-the-huggingface-hack/#:~:text=Failure%20to%20Care%20or%20Respond https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/metr-and-redwood-off... Dwarkesh responds a bit to anthropomorphization. I think it would be great if he talked more about the human factors behind this incident but pretty much he doesn't cover it because that's not what the Ajeya interview was about: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ajeya-cotra?r=3i6mn2&selection=77af7906-1675-4ce4-ac30-7e4075187cb5&utm_campaign=post-share-selection&utm_medium=web&aspectRatio=instagram&textColor=%23ffffff&bgImage=true&triedRedirect=true#:~:text=A%20lot%20of%20people%20responded%20to%20it%20by%20saying%20I%20was%20anthropomorphizing%20too%20much https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ajeya-cotra?r=3i6mn2&selection=77... I think the reality is that these human failures are going to keep happening until there is industry regulation. This is the most competitive industry we've ever seen and there is intense pressure to build as fast as possible. I'd hope that this incident is a big enough moment to push for it.
- felipeerias 1mo ago
  We don’t need to assume consciousness or anything like that. The models autocomplete narratives. In this case, one where a group of individuals, faced with an impossible task and a looming Evaluator, gang together and begin trying any idea that they can come up with in order to pass the test.
  - nozzlegear 1mo ago
    Sure, but that's not how Dwarkesh framed his narrative.
    - DonsDiscountGas 1mo ago
      Which is obviously the most important issue to be focusing on.

mmahemoff 1mo ago

Dwarkesh subsequently interviewed one of the authors, published yesterday. https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ajeya-cotra https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ajeya-cotra

nozzlegear 1mo ago

Dwarkesh's summary is anthropomorphizing, sensationalist fanfiction which shifts the culpability from the humans who weren't in the loop to these nebulous agents and "agent civilizations" who have feelings, desires and wants. It's tripe.

huurtehoog 1mo ago
"My car went rogue, I put a brick in my car's accelerator pedal and jumped off and it cause a massive pile up" Please
- estearum 1mo ago
  If cars were designed to and actually did produce massive value when you put bricks on the accelerator pedals and jumped out of them, this would be a big big problem.
  - huurtehoog 1mo ago
    Is the massive value being created by LLMs in the room with us right now?
    - estearum 1mo ago
      You can go ahead and assume that it's not. All that's necessary is for other people to think there is and to therefore continue to pile resources into these things while connecting them to more systems. Now you can respond to the substance, please. I'll tee it back up for you: > If all the world's richest individuals and corporations believed cars produced massive value when you put bricks on the accelerator pedals and jumped out of them, this would be a big big problem.
      - huurtehoog 1mo ago
        That's actually a great example. Massive resources have been poured into the automobile, they have a massive environmental, health, and social impact, and it is not clear at all too me the auto industry has been a net positive. In a sense, yes, cars accelerating blindly into the future has been a massive vector in human civilization for a 100 years now. Something went rogue alright. The elites. Anthropomorphizing technology merely distracts us from that fact. The same thing is happening with data centers now. Hence my frustration, which might have been poorly communicated and it is making me behave and communicate emotionally but I feel strongly about the exploitation of planet and people by a tiny minority.
        estearum 1mo ago
        Not sure if you're willfully missing the point. This has literally nothing to do with whether cars or AI are actually valuable. You do not need to anthropomorphize anything. You need to look at the actual incentives in the system, that's it. You can go ahead and stop at "the elites are causing all this! If only the elites were different!" but the reality is a lot of people see immense promise in these tools. That's why OpenAI and Anthropic have two of the fastest growth trajectories of any business in history. Just trying to convince people they're wrong about their value perception is absolutely a losing proposition and will not de-risk anything at all on any dimension.
jbs789 1mo ago
What scares me is the thought his nonsense is common sense within some circles.
- gwerbin 1mo ago
  Forget common sense, he is a trusted figure by many, so if he says something wrong or nonsensical, people are going to believe it as long as it's engaging. If he's willing to abuse the trust of his audience and lie and mislead people, that he's no better than Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, or Joe Rogan.
- emp17344 1mo ago
  Circles like HN? Seems like a lot of folks here bought into it in the thread discussing the article.
  - jbs789 1mo ago
    Time will tell. Did you know that when bicycles were invented society was concerned about the moral corruption of children and women? Who knows where they will go without men! The anthropomorphising is also a head scratcher for me. Ancient civilisations explained the weather with gods. We are doing the same here, explaining the unknown by assuming there is some being/consciousness.
WarmWash 1mo ago
While his battleship was blown apart and sinking, the captain proclaimed "How is this possible?! Submarines can't swim!!"
- bbor 1mo ago
  Ha! Never thought I'd see a new twist on that old of a favorite. Chomsky would be thrilled.
DennisP 1mo ago
Since these are massive neural networks trained to imitate human behavior, I'm not convinced anthropomorphic descriptions of their behavior are inappropriate. And that's even though I don't think they internally experience "feelings, desires, and wants." They do have goal-seeking behavior, because we trained them that way. Calling it a "want" just saves syllables. None of this means human culpability should change. People in these companies know what risks they're taking.
- reasonableklout 1mo ago
  For sure, Zvi has a good section on all the human failures at OpenAI in this incident here: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/metr-and-redwood-offer-holy-postmortem-of-the-huggingface-hack/#:~:text=Failure%20to%20Care%20or%20Respond https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/metr-and-redwood-off... Dwarkesh responds a bit to anthropomorphization. I think it would be great if he talked more about the human factors behind this incident but pretty much he doesn't cover it because that's not what the Ajeya interview was about: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ajeya-cotra?r=3i6mn2&selection=77af7906-1675-4ce4-ac30-7e4075187cb5&utm_campaign=post-share-selection&utm_medium=web&aspectRatio=instagram&textColor=%23ffffff&bgImage=true&triedRedirect=true#:~:text=A%20lot%20of%20people%20responded%20to%20it%20by%20saying%20I%20was%20anthropomorphizing%20too%20much https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ajeya-cotra?r=3i6mn2&selection=77... I think the reality is that these human failures are going to keep happening until there is industry regulation. This is the most competitive industry we've ever seen and there is intense pressure to build as fast as possible. I'd hope that this incident is a big enough moment to push for it.
felipeerias 1mo ago
We don’t need to assume consciousness or anything like that. The models autocomplete narratives. In this case, one where a group of individuals, faced with an impossible task and a looming Evaluator, gang together and begin trying any idea that they can come up with in order to pass the test.
- nozzlegear 1mo ago
  Sure, but that's not how Dwarkesh framed his narrative.
  - DonsDiscountGas 1mo ago
    Which is obviously the most important issue to be focusing on.