Latest news with #BenGurionUniversity
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Most AI chatbots easily tricked into giving dangerous responses, study finds
Hacked AI-powered chatbots threaten to make dangerous knowledge readily available by churning out illicit information the programs absorb during training, researchers say. The warning comes amid a disturbing trend for chatbots that have been 'jailbroken' to circumvent their built-in safety controls. The restrictions are supposed to prevent the programs from providing harmful, biased or inappropriate responses to users' questions. The engines that power chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude – large language models (LLMs) – are fed vast amounts of material from the internet. Despite efforts to strip harmful text from the training data, LLMs can still absorb information about illegal activities such as hacking, money laundering, insider trading and bomb-making. The security controls are designed to stop them using that information in their responses. In a report on the threat, the researchers conclude that it is easy to trick most AI-driven chatbots into generating harmful and illegal information, showing that the risk is 'immediate, tangible and deeply concerning'. 'What was once restricted to state actors or organised crime groups may soon be in the hands of anyone with a laptop or even a mobile phone,' the authors warn. The research, led by Prof Lior Rokach and Dr Michael Fire at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, identified a growing threat from 'dark LLMs', AI models that are either deliberately designed without safety controls or modified through jailbreaks. Some are openly advertised online as having 'no ethical guardrails' and being willing to assist with illegal activities such as cybercrime and fraud. Jailbreaking tends to use carefully crafted prompts to trick chatbots into generating responses that are normally prohibited. They work by exploiting the tension between the program's primary goal to follow the user's instructions, and its secondary goal to avoid generating harmful, biased, unethical or illegal answers. The prompts tend to create scenarios in which the program prioritises helpfulness over its safety constraints. To demonstrate the problem, the researchers developed a universal jailbreak that compromised multiple leading chatbots, enabling them to answer questions that should normally be refused. Once compromised, the LLMs consistently generated responses to almost any query, the report states. 'It was shocking to see what this system of knowledge consists of,' Fire said. Examples included how to hack computer networks or make drugs, and step-by-step instructions for other criminal activities. 'What sets this threat apart from previous technological risks is its unprecedented combination of accessibility, scalability and adaptability,' Rokach added. The researchers contacted leading providers of LLMs to alert them to the universal jailbreak but said the response was 'underwhelming'. Several companies failed to respond, while others said jailbreak attacks fell outside the scope of bounty programs, which reward ethical hackers for flagging software vulnerabilities. The report says tech firms should screen training data more carefully, add robust firewalls to block risky queries and responses and develop 'machine unlearning' techniques, so chatbots can 'forget' any illicit information they absorb. Dark LLMs should be seen as 'serious security risks', comparable to unlicensed weapons and explosives, with providers being held accountable, it adds. Dr Ihsen Alouani, who works on AI security at Queen's University Belfast, said jailbreak attacks on LLMs could pose real risks, from providing detailed instructions on weapon-making to convincing disinformation or social engineering and automated scams 'with alarming sophistication'. 'A key part of the solution is for companies to invest more seriously in red teaming and model-level robustness techniques, rather than relying solely on front-end safeguards. We also need clearer standards and independent oversight to keep pace with the evolving threat landscape,' he said. Prof Peter Garraghan, an AI security expert at Lancaster University, said: 'Organisations must treat LLMs like any other critical software component – one that requires rigorous security testing, continuous red teaming and contextual threat modelling. 'Yes, jailbreaks are a concern, but without understanding the full AI stack, accountability will remain superficial. Real security demands not just responsible disclosure, but responsible design and deployment practices,' he added. OpenAI, the firm that built ChatGPT, said its latest o1 model can reason about the firm's safety policies, which improves its resilience to jailbreaks. The company added that it was always investigating ways to make the programs more robust. Meta, Google, Microsoft and Anthropic, have been approached for comment. Microsoft responded with a link to a blog on its work to safeguard against jailbreaks.
Time Magazine
20-05-2025
- Business
- Time Magazine
Sylvan Adams
Two months after the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, real estate mogul Sylvan Adams donated $100 million to Ben Gurion University of the Negev, the region's largest employer. It was one of the biggest gifts ever made to an academic institution in the country and Adams' largest single donation to date. 'To bring people back, they need economic opportunity,' says Adams, who moved to Tel Aviv from his native Quebec City in 2015. For each of the past nine years, Adams has donated at least that much collectively to his adopted homeland and elsewhere, supporting education, sports facilities, initiatives for the elderly, after-school programs, and health care, including funding a children's hospital in Holon in 2020 and the Sylvan Adams Emergency Hospital in Tel Aviv in 2022. Adams, who was appointed president of the World Jewish Congress for the Israel region earlier this year, says his giving is based on a Jewish tradition called tikkun olam, which in Hebrew means repairing the world. 'A lot of my initiatives are going towards sciences where we will use technological innovations that help save mankind and save the planet," he says.
Telegraph
06-04-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Bible story where Jesus' ancestor was slain by pharaoh could be true
A Bible story about Jesus' ancestor Josiah, 'the last good king of Judah', could be true, according to a study. In the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic final clash between good and evil takes place at Armageddon before a new world is born. Today known as Tel Megiddo, located in current-day northern Israel, the site is believed to be where the ancestor of Jesus, King Josiah, was killed by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II, according to the Bible. Now, excavations reveal that there was an Egyptian presence at the site during Josiah's time, the first archaeological evidence to support the Biblical tale. Assaf Kleiman of Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel, who co-authored a study about the discoveries, said the findings were a 'big surprise' for archaeologists. He said: 'Our recent excavations near the administrative quarter of Megiddo revealed the remains of a large structure dated to the late seventh century BC. 'Within this building, we have found high quantities of crude and straw-tempered pottery vessels imported from Egypt, as well as a few East Greek vessels. 'The exposure of these findings was a big surprise for our team, as these were not unearthed thus far at Megiddo.' The Greek vessels are considered to 'represent Greek mercenaries' who may have worked in the Egyptian army, according to the study's co-author, Prof Israel Finkelstein of the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University He said: 'The Greek pottery is usually considered as representing Greek mercenaries. From sources such as Herodotus and the Assyrian King, Ashurbanipal, we know that Greeks from Anatolia served as mercenaries in the Egyptian army. 'This scenario may be linked to the biblical account about the killing of King Josiah of Judah by Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo in 609 BC.' Josiah is described in the Bible as a religious reformer who ended the worship of any god but Yahweh (the Hebrew name for God). He is also listed as a paternal ancestor of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. But the Old Testament gives varied accounts of his death. Dr Finkelstein said: 'The Bible recounts the death of Josiah at Megiddo in two places. He's killed by Necho during an encounter at Megiddo in the Book of Kings, and killed in a battle with the Egyptians in the Book of Chronicles. 'Kings gives close to 'real time' evidence while Chronicles represents centuries-later thoughts. 'On this background, the new evidence for an Egyptian garrison, possibly with Greek mercenaries, at Megiddo in the late seventh century BC, may provide the background to the event. 'Moreover, in two places in prophetic works, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the Bible hints that west Anatolians – Lydians – were involved in the killing of Josiah.' The site's Hebrew name, Har Megiddo – meaning Mount Megiddo – was rendered as Harmagedon in Greek, leading to the modern name, Armageddon. There is debate amongst experts as to why Josiah was killed there. Some believe that his army blocked the path of the pharaoh, who was en route to Syria with his troops. Others think he might have been summoned as a vassal and was executed for failing to pay sufficient tribute to Egypt. It's also been suggested Josiah's death there created its apocalyptic reputation. 'It would make sense to place the [final] battle out there due to Israel's history of that location,' Hope Bolinger said at
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Bible story where Jesus' ancestor was slain by pharaoh could be true
A Bible story about Jesus' ancestor Josiah, 'the last good king of Judah', could be true, according to a study. In the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic final clash between good and evil takes place at Armageddon before a new world is born. Today known as Tel Megiddo, located in current-day northern Israel, the site is believed to be where the ancestor of Jesus, King Josiah, was killed by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II, according to the Bible. Now, excavations reveal that there was an Egyptian presence at the site during Josiah's time, the first archaeological evidence to support the Biblical tale. Assaf Kleiman of Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel, who co-authored a study about the discoveries, said the findings were a 'big surprise' for archaeologists. He said: 'Our recent excavations near the administrative quarter of Megiddo revealed the remains of a large structure dated to the late seventh century BC. 'Within this building, we have found high quantities of crude and straw-tempered pottery vessels imported from Egypt, as well as a few East Greek vessels. 'The exposure of these findings was a big surprise for our team, as these were not unearthed thus far at Megiddo.' The Greek vessels are considered to 'represent Greek mercenaries' who may have worked in the Egyptian army, according to the study's co-author, Prof Israel Finkelstein of the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University He said: 'The Greek pottery is usually considered as representing Greek mercenaries. From sources such as Herodotus and the Assyrian King, Ashurbanipal, we know that Greeks from Anatolia served as mercenaries in the Egyptian army. 'This scenario may be linked to the biblical account about the killing of King Josiah of Judah by Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo in 609 BC.' Josiah is described in the Bible as a religious reformer who ended the worship of any god but Yahweh (the Hebrew name for God). He is also listed as a paternal ancestor of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. But the Old Testament gives varied accounts of his death. Dr Finkelstein said: 'The Bible recounts the death of Josiah at Megiddo in two places. He's killed by Necho during an encounter at Megiddo in the Book of Kings, and killed in a battle with the Egyptians in the Book of Chronicles. 'Kings gives close to 'real time' evidence while Chronicles represents centuries-later thoughts. 'On this background, the new evidence for an Egyptian garrison, possibly with Greek mercenaries, at Megiddo in the late seventh century BC, may provide the background to the event. 'Moreover, in two places in prophetic works, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the Bible hints that west Anatolians – Lydians – were involved in the killing of Josiah.' The site's Hebrew name, Har Megiddo – meaning Mount Megiddo – was rendered as Harmagedon in Greek, leading to the modern name, Armageddon. There is debate amongst experts as to why Josiah was killed there. Some believe that his army blocked the path of the pharaoh, who was en route to Syria with his troops. Others think he might have been summoned as a vassal and was executed for failing to pay sufficient tribute to Egypt. It's also been suggested Josiah's death there created its apocalyptic reputation. 'It would make sense to place the [final] battle out there due to Israel's history of that location,' Hope Bolinger said at Dr Kleiman, Dr Finkelstein, and their colleagues Matthew Adams and Alexander Fantalkin published their study in the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
