Wikipedia operator says OpenAI's rogue agents possibly tied to data service disruption in May

‌The Wikimedia ​Foundation, which operates the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, says that heavy traffic from OpenAI's rogue ‌agents was possibly tied to disruption that its data service experienced in May. Here are some details:

• In a blog post issued ‌on Monday, Wikimedia said it could confirm "that we have discovered ‌some activity by these 'rogue' OpenAI agents on Wikimedia platforms," including a May incident that resulted in a "partial outage" of its Wikidata Query Service. • Wikimedia said ⁠the ​disruption seemed to ⁠have been triggered as the agents visited millions of pages and made hundreds ⁠of thousands of data queries.

• Wikimedia also said that the OpenAI ​agents made unauthorized edits to Wikimedia wiki sites, including "potentially malicious ⁠edits" to a citation tool which the foundation said were likely intended ⁠to ​hijack it. • Wikimedia said its Etherpad note-taking tool was also hit by malicious activity from OpenAI's agents.

• OpenAI ⁠did not immediately return an email seeking comment. The company has been ⁠scrambling ⁠to get its arms around the full scope of its rogue agent activity, Reuters has previously reported.