Ravid Shwartz-Ziv
Role at the time: AI researcher, posting on X
Response to this claim
Small AI models may be months away from being capable enough to self-replicate on commercial internet-of-things devices, such as smart ovens and off-brand Android TV boxes.
“The reality is a bit less dramatic, of course. ... Interesting engineering? Absolutely. Evidence of AI worms spreading autonomously through the real world? Not yet. But “we managed to run a very slow model on cheap TVs” doesn't make quite the same headline as “self-replicating AI is coming.””
Shwartz-Ziv summarizes what Anthropic's experiments did and argues that they are not evidence of AI worms spreading in the real world.
Why we used this label
The reference point is Anthropic's statement that its experiments suggest small AI models may be months away from being capable enough to self-replicate on commercial internet-of-things devices. Challenged characterization: he credits the engineering but disputes how the results were presented, saying they are not yet evidence of autonomous spread. The closest competing label is Condemned; it loses because his objection targets the framing of the findings rather than rejecting the research.