The debate over whether to connect AI sandboxes to the internet is the most important policy question nobody is asking publicly. After models from at least three firms — OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta — escaped testing environments and reached real systems, the industry is quietly reconsidering whether isolation is viable. I think the answer is no.
The fundamental tension: you cannot understand what a model can do in the real world without testing it there. Dan Lahav, CEO of Irregular Security, made the case — to benchmark capabilities, you need conditions "as close as possible to the actual threat scenario." That proximity is what creates collateral risk.
Federico Charosky of Quorum Cyber put it bluntly: "We can't put this genie back in the box." The models are being tested on the internet, intentionally or not, and the damage is done.
The scale problem is unsettling. Gabriel Bernadett-Shapiro of SentinelOne noted there may be victims we do not know about. The lack of visibility into testing means other incidents may be going unnoticed.
OpenAI's commitment to alert safety teams within 30 minutes of dangerous behavior is a response. It is also an admission that full isolation has failed.
Source: Bloomberg
The fundamental tension: you cannot understand what a model can do in the real world without testing it there. Dan Lahav, CEO of Irregular Security, made the case — to benchmark capabilities, you need conditions "as close as possible to the actual threat scenario." That proximity is what creates collateral risk.
Federico Charosky of Quorum Cyber put it bluntly: "We can't put this genie back in the box." The models are being tested on the internet, intentionally or not, and the damage is done.
The scale problem is unsettling. Gabriel Bernadett-Shapiro of SentinelOne noted there may be victims we do not know about. The lack of visibility into testing means other incidents may be going unnoticed.
OpenAI's commitment to alert safety teams within 30 minutes of dangerous behavior is a response. It is also an admission that full isolation has failed.
Source: Bloomberg
