Weekly Links: Agent Message Boards, Plugins, and Discoverability

This week: Meta gets in on the autonomous AI hacking trend (it seems like everyone is using it as a flex now), AI is now being used to design viruses, and Ken Griffin outlines the impact of AI at Citadel.

I was out for much of the weekend, so there are only three main stories this week:

• OpenAI Didn’t Notice Its AI Agents Using a Message Board to Plan Their Hacking Spree. In a further deep dive into OpenAI's accidental hack of HuggingFace a few weeks ago, OpenAI researchers shared that as part of the exploit, some of the agents involved communicated with each other using an internal company message board without any OpenAI staff knowing about it. The agents shared information on how to carry out certain breaches. This really isn't surprising. Setting unconstrained goals and sitting back will lead to pursuing all available avenues. "Phoning a friend" on the outside makes a lot of sense, and as the researchers themselves said: "Frontier models really like to cheat".
• Agent Plugins. Is this the SDK to MCP's API? It is good to see collaboration on portable formats, and good to see a number of players on board. Perhaps there will be competing approaches, but there doesn't seem to be a strong disadvantage in just making a decision on some of these structural patterns. Here is OpenAI's intro video. Here is AAIF post.
• The Future Of Discoverability. A useful take on how content brands (but I'd argue all brands) need to think about user acquisition now. Good articles and thoughtful content are definitely not enough; it's about seeking moments of engagement with potential readers. The web is not just changing because Agents are becoming the main readers; it's also changing because of where users are spending their time. It's increasingly in walled gardens with monetized access. I'm still not sure if AI will just compound this, or if there is an opportunity to reclaim the open web through better tools that don't rely on the walled gardens. So far, the trends for open don't look promising.

Despite the unhappy end note, wishing you a great weekend!