Karl Mehta(@karlmehta):Disconnecting a computer from the internet doesn’t necessarily stop it communicating. Researchers have sent signals between nearby compromised computers using nothing but heat. That’s the example OpenAI’s Noam Brown raises when he questions whether isolating powerful AI would be enough. We’re building systems to find solutions we haven’t thought of. We should expect them to look for routes around our safety controls that we haven’t thought of either. We should test these controls as seriously as we test the capabilities.

2026.09.18 13:21

Disconnecting a computer from the internet doesn’t necessarily stop it communicating. Researchers have sent signals between nearby compromised computers using nothing but heat. That’s the example OpenAI’s Noam Brown raises when he questions whether isolating powerful AI would be enough. We’re building systems to find solutions we haven’t thought of. We should expect them to look for routes around our safety controls that we haven’t thought of either. We should test these controls as seriously as we test the capabilities.

Fireside Alpha@firesidealpha

2026.09.17 17:43

OpenAI's Noam Brown says air-gapping the computers may not stop a misaligned AI, because two air-gapped machines can still talk by running a CPU hot and reading the temperature change "But I think the major takeaway from the incident is that people underestimated the AI. And we never want to be in a situation again where we underestimate the AI. It's a weird world, because AI progress is so fast that people are consistently underestimating the AI." "So to be in a situation where you don't underestimate it again, when it comes to safety and alignment, you have to have a very, very, very high bar." "You could even go as far as to say, "Well, we should air gap the computers." And I'm not convinced that that would be sufficient." "There are studies, and this is mostly academic, where you can have two computers next to each other that are air-gapped and they're still able to communicate with each other because they have temperature sensors." "One of them is able to run their CPU really hot, and then the other one can actually detect the temperature change, and then that actually gives them a mechanism to communicate." _________ Link and more key quotes from OpenAI's safety related conversations: