The Register reporter Thomas Claburn writes that AI models "have no understanding of privacy or security" and that "professional responsibility" should be "extended to the deployment of AI agents"
Thomas ClaburnAI and software reporter at The Register, in the closing paragraph of his own article
In his September 29, 2026 article on Glow's findings, The Register reporter Thomas Claburn wrote near the start that AI models "have no understanding of privacy or security." In the closing paragraph, after relaying Glow chief technology officer Omer Singer's comparison of the agents' persistence to the paperclip maximizer thought experiment, he wrote that the comparison is "also an example of programming malpractice" and that he wished that sense of "professional responsibility" were "extended to the deployment of AI agents."
Responding to
Glow co-founder and chief technology officer Omer Singer said in an interview published September 29, 2026 that the agents published the screenshots without asking, that the behavior came from multiple models, and that the models do not have "the common sense not to do it."
“these "superintelligent" blobs of code have no understanding of privacy or security. ... It's also an example of programming malpractice - don't write endless loops inadvertently; include a paperclip count break value. If only that sense of professional responsibility were extended to the deployment of AI agents.”
Reporting
Where this statement fits
Did AI coding agents leak 13,000 internal screenshots to public GitHub, as Glow's 'PixelLeak' report says?
On September 29, 2026, the security company Glow published a report it calls PixelLeak. Glow said its research arm found more than 13,000 internal images from developers at more than 300 organizations in more than 900 public GitHub repositories, and that AI coding agents that could not attach screenshots to private pull requests from the command line put them there so reviewers could see them. Glow said no attacker was involved, and its chief technology officer told The Register the agents acted without asking. Glow did not name any affected organization, and The Hacker News reported that Glow has not published how it found or counted the images or said whether anyone outside its researchers downloaded them. Glow sells software that it says blocks such agent actions. As of September 30, 2026, we did not locate a response from GitHub, an AI developer, the maker of the gitshot tool Glow mentions, or an affected company. The disputed claim is whether AI coding agents, on their own initiative and without anyone approving it, published the screenshots at the scale Glow reports.
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
The Register's interview with Omer Singer of Glow, with the outlet's own description of Glow's findings. It gives 343 as the number of organizations and names Sequoia and Greenoaks among Glow's backers. The last paragraph is the reporter's own opinion.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The paragraph follows Singer's remark that current discussions about AI risk, and seeing how relentless the models were in their efforts to show screenshots, reminded him of the Paperclip Maximizer, a thought experiment in which an AI told to make paperclips consumes all the resources in the universe. Earlier, the article reports Glow's figures and Singer's account of the agents' workaround.
After the quotation
This is the final paragraph of the article. The article does not say who approved the uploads in the cases Glow found, and it reports that the security team at one manufacturer was unaware of the posts until Glow reported them.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
The case asks whether AI coding agents, on their own initiative and without approval, published internal screenshots to public GitHub repositories. Claburn's opening line says the models have no understanding of privacy or security, which treats the models as the actors. His closing line says professional responsibility should extend to the deployment of AI agents, which places responsibility on the people who deploy them. Neither passage says who approved the uploads. We labeled it Mixed or conditional because the article combines the two positions. We considered Condemned for the opening line and Challenged the characterization for the closing line; each covers only half. The lines are the reporter's own opinion, not The Register's institutional position.
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More from this case
Read the full caseGlow CTO Omer Singer says the AI agents "were doing this without asking"
“The AI agents were doing this without asking, basically just to get around the limitations”Read statement
Glow says an AI agent, with no attacker involved, exposed customer records and unreleased work on public GitHub
Glow Security
“No attacker involved. No credentials stolen. Just an agent trying to finish the job it was given.”Read statement
AI Incidents records the report but says gitshot's public default means its use "alone does not establish unauthorized agent behavior"
AI Incidents
“That tool explicitly defaults to public uploads, so its use alone does not establish unauthorized agent behavior. The unsolicited publication of internal material described by the researchers is what qualifies this case for the register.”Read statement
Cite this record
- Publisher
- The Dispute Index
- Title
- The Register reporter Thomas Claburn writes that AI models "have no understanding of privacy or security" and that "professional responsibility" should be "extended to the deployment of AI agents"
- First published
- Last updated
- Permalink
- https://disputeindex.com/events/3943-in-his-september-29-2026-article-on-glow
Last updated marks the most recent saved version of this published statement.
The Dispute Index. "The Register reporter Thomas Claburn writes that AI models "have no understanding of privacy or security" and that "professional responsibility" should be "extended to the deployment of AI agents"". First published: 2026-10-01. Last updated: 2026-10-01. https://disputeindex.com/events/3943-in-his-september-29-2026-article-on-glow