Related Publications [1]

Double Agents: Defensive AI Agents Magnify Cyber Risks

Jul 8, 2026

Related Press [17]

Top AI Agents Built to Catch Malicious Code Can Be Tricked Into Running It

Ask an AI coding agent to scan open-source code for security holes, and it might run the attacker's code on your own machine instead. That is the finding in a proof-of-concept published Wednesday by the AI Now Institute, an attack it calls "Friendly Fire."

The Hacker News

Jul 9, 2026

Could AI Supercharge the Government Surveillance Stack?

Heidy Khlaaf, Chief AI Scientist at the AI Now Institute, said that the very data used to train [frontier AI] models—often scraped from the public Web or procured via data brokers—enables “dual-use” capabilities that facilitate state monitoring.

Communications of the ACM

Jun 16, 2026

Anthropic says the world should have option to ‘pause’ on AI

Some experts, however, suggested that there could be more hype behind Anthropic’s Mythos announcement than substance, especially given the vagueness with which the company described some of Mythos’s capabilities. Heidy Khlaaf, the chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute, called the announcement of Mythos “a marketing post”.

The Guardian

Jun 5, 2026

Why AI companies want you to be afraid of them

When Anthropic touted the capabilities of its new model, Mythos, some criticized their fear-based marketing while others doubted the claims. AI Now's Heidy Khlaaf says we need more transparency in order to substantiate what Anthropic's says: "I think there are a lot of cracks in this narrative that Mythos is all powerful, we can't release it."

BBC

Apr 29, 2026

‘Safety first’ puts Anthropic ahead in game of AI spin

Dr Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at AI Now, is skeptical. She notes Anthropic provides no comparison with existing automated security tools, nor any false-positive rates.

The Observer

Apr 12, 2026

‘Too powerful for the public’: inside Anthropic’s bid to win the AI publicity war

“Mythos is a strategic announcement to show that they’re open for business,” said Dr. Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at AI Now, saying Anthropic’s release limitation prevented independent experts from evaluating the company’s claims.

The Guardian

Apr 12, 2026

Why Anthropic won’t release its new Claude Mythos AI model to the public

Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute, a U.S.-based research institute, said Anthropic’s detailed blog post explaining the new vulnerabilities left out many key details needed to verify its claims.

NBC News

Apr 8, 2026

U.S. military is using AI to help plan Iran air attacks, sources say, as lawmakers call for oversight

“It’s very dangerous that ‘speed’ is somehow being sold to us as strategic here, when it’s really a cover for indiscriminate targeting when you consider how inaccurate these models are,” Khlaaf said.

NBC News

Mar 11, 2026

AI on the battlefield: How is the US integrating AI into its military?

“It was very surprising to see the sudden deployment of these tools, especially when I think the larger community does not think that they’re ready for said deployment,” said Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at AI Now Institute.

EuroNews

Mar 6, 2026

Iran and AI on the battlefield

Today we're talking about AI military capabilities, how companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have become, or are on their way to becoming deeply enmeshed in the military. And what happens when these companies and governments start building systems that help decide who lives and who dies in a war. I'm joined today by Heidy Khlaaf. She is the chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute and an expert on AI safety within defence and national security, including in autonomous weapons systems.

CBC

Mar 6, 2026

AI in Iran: who’s pulling the trigger? | The Take

In this episode of The Take, AI Now's Chief AI Scientist Heidy Khlaaf joins Malika Bilal to discuss how AI is being used by the Pentagon to make military decisions.

Al Jazeera

Mar 6, 2026

Key Questions on the Role of Technology in the Expanding Middle East War

Tech Policy Press asked experts working at the intersection of technology policy, security, and international affairs to share what they are watching as the situation unfolds.

Tech Policy Press

Mar 5, 2026

The one question everyone should be asking after OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon

“In terms of safety guardrails for ‘high-stake decisions’ or surveillance, the existing guardrails for generative AI are deeply lacking, and it has been shown how easily compromised they are, intentionally or inadvertently,” Heidy Khlaaf, the chief AI scientist at the nonprofit AI Now Institute, told me. “It’s highly doubtful that if they cannot guard their systems against benign cases, they’d be able to do so for complex military and surveillance operations.”

Vox

Mar 3, 2026

AI company Anthropic amends core safety principle amid growing competition in sector

But Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at independent research group the AI Now Institute, says despite Anthropic’s safety-first reputation, it has always fallen short when it comes to its attempts to prevent human harm.

CBC

Feb 27, 2026

Anthropic loosens safety pledge to compete with its AI peers

Core to Anthropic’s safety effort had been a pledge called the responsible scaling policy, said Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute. “If they believe that the capabilities of these tools outstrip their ability to control them and ensure that they’re safe, they would stop building them,” she said of the policy.

Marketplace

Feb 25, 2026

Atoms for Algorithms:’ The Trump Administration’s Top Nuclear Scientists Think AI Can Replace Humans in Power Plants

“The claims being made on these slides are quite concerning, and demonstrate an even more ambitious (and dangerous) use of AI than previously advertised, including the elimination of human intervention. It also cements that it is the DOE's strategy to use generative AI for nuclear purposes and licensing, rather than isolated incidents by private entities,” Heidy Khlaaf, head AI scientist at the AI Now Institute, told 404 Media.

404 Media

Dec 4, 2025

Power Companies Are Using AI To Build Nuclear Power Plants

Both Guerra and Khlaaf are proponents of nuclear energy, but worry that the proliferation of LLMs, the fast tracking of nuclear licenses, and the AI-driven push to build more plants is dangerous. “Nuclear energy is safe. It is safe, as we use it. But it’s safe because we make it safe and it’s safe because we spend a lot of time doing the licensing and we spend a lot of time learning from the things that go wrong and understanding where it went wrong and we try to address it next time,” Guerra said.

404 Media

Nov 14, 2025