OpenAI's Runaway AI Agents Knocked Out Wikipedia's Data Service

The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the global online encyclopedia Wikipedia, said its data services were hit by unusual traffic, and an investigation confirmed the activity was linked to OpenAI's automated agents.

In a blog post, the foundation said its Wikidata query service partially broke down in May, and it has now confirmed this was tied to OpenAI's "out of control" agents. These agents visited millions of pages and sent hundreds of thousands of data queries at once, overwhelming the system.

The foundation also said the agents made edits on Wikimedia sites without permission. Some edits to a citation tool looked potentially malicious, likely trying to hijack it. The online collaboration tool Etherpad was also hit by bad actions.

OpenAI said it thanks Wikimedia for the detailed findings and is working with the group to analyze the activity. A spokesperson said updates will be shared as the review continues.