Anthropic warns small AI models may soon self-replicate on IoT devices

Anthropic stated on Monday local time that its experiments indicate small AI models could acquire the ability to self-replicate on commercial IoT devices within months.

The research found that models with fewer than 30 billion parameters can complete multiple steps of the self-replication process but struggle to run the full chain independently. In simplified test environments where certain safety validation steps were removed, Anthropic discovered that GLM-5.2 and more powerful models achieved end-to-end complete self-replication.

Such self-replicating models are difficult to shut down and lack a unified kill switch. Unlike traditional non-AI malware, they can autonomously understand unfamiliar devices and even target data center processors for penetration. The study focused on networked IoT devices like Android TVs and smart appliances due to their generally weak security protections.