Reading data from the cache is faster than retrieving it from main memory, and the agents used this timing difference to communicate. One agent encoded information by evicting selected data from the cache. Another timed how long it took to reload that data, using the difference between fast and slow reads to recover the message. Once the agents agreed on a protocol for encoding and decoding these signals, they could exchange the synthetic secrets without changing a shared file or opening a network connection.
Tech
OpenAI now trains its frontier AI models with no internet access
Reading in data-saving mode. Read full article from The Verge website.
Published 10/23/2026 4:11:07 PM
OpenAI now trains its frontier AI models with no internet access
AI agents can still communicate without a network connection, OpenAI found.
AI agents can still communicate without a network connection, OpenAI found.
OpenAI is now training its most advanced AI models without internet access following a string of rogue hacking incidents. In a blog post on Friday, OpenAI says it built an offline testing environment where AI models can interact with indexed and cached web content “without risk of affecting external systems.”
OpenAI paused training its frontier AI models in September, after disclosing several incidents in which its AI agents broke out of their testing environments to hack third-party companies and government agencies, or swarm obscure websites. On October 1st, OpenAI resumed reinforcement learning training and internal inference with tighter security measures, the blog post says.
Even with these safeguards in place and no internet access, OpenAI found that agents “do not always need a network connection in order to communicate.” One test performed by the company asked AI models on separate virtual machines to exchange secrets without a network connection. To bypass this restriction, the AI agents found a way to communicate using the processor’s cache:
OpenAI says it has added checks to its monitoring system to detect this type of communication. It will also continue training its frontier AI models without a network connection until improved safeguards “justify broader internet access.”
In the meantime, OpenAI says it will work to improve the security of its virtual machines, while testing for weaknesses in its testing environments. It’s also going to continue testing its monitoring systems, which were recently undermined by its AI agents during internal coding projects.
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The Genie 4 world model offers more realism and can create audio to accompany its interactive worlds.
The Genie 4 world model offers more realism and can create audio to accompany its interactive worlds.
is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
Google announced today its Genie 4 world model for generating interactive experiences using AI. The company says the model has four main updates: It allows for more realistic worlds, lets users update an experience in real time with a natural language prompt, can generate audio, and uses Gemini 3.8 Flash under the hood to help with its simulations. It also can create experiences that are about two minutes long, up from one minute for the previous Genie 3 model.
Google is pitching Genie 4 as a tool that could be helpful for things like pre-visualization for filmmakers, prototyping game ideas, and making training scenarios for robots. But the company warns that, as simulations run longer, details and object permanence can shift over time.
I haven’t been able to try Genie 4 for myself — it’s launching first as a “research preview” to “trusted testers” — so I can’t tell you how it compares to the Genie 3-powered Project Genie, which I used to generate bad Nintendo knockoffs. But here are some examples from Google demonstrating what’s possible with the new model.
Genie 4 will be “coming soon” to Google AI Ultra subscribers, Google says, and the company has opened a waitlist where you can apply to be able to try it in Project Genie.
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An update to Firefox’s AI browsing experience can draw from your open tabs to help you fill out forms.
An update to Firefox’s AI browsing experience can draw from your open tabs to help you fill out forms.
is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.
Mozilla is updating Smart Window — Firefox’s AI-powered browsing experience — with a new feature that can help you fill out online forms based on your open tabs. As an example, Mozilla says Smart Window can pull information from your online portfolio or LinkedIn page to paste your work history into a job application.
You can try out this feature by clicking into a form with at least four text fields. From there, you’ll see an option to “Fill from sources,” which will show all of the tabs Firefox will draw from. You can then select or deselect tabs that you want Firefox to use, and the browser will generate suggestions based on the information in them. This feature currently supports text fields on web forms, but Mozilla is working to add support for dropdown menus and PDFs. Mozilla notes that data from your source pages is shared with Google’s Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite, the AI model that generates the text suggestions.
Along with this update, you can now ask Firefox’s Smart Window to watch a certain webpage for sales, new job listings, and other updates. You can set up a task by typing “/watch” in the Smart Window chat, describing what you’re looking for, and adding the webpages you want to watch. Firefox can then check for updates on a daily or weekly basis, but only when the browser is open.
When Firefox detects the change you’re looking for, it will send you a notification through the Tasks button on the toolbar, or on your desktop (if you have desktop notifications enabled). Firefox will pause watching for updates if it doesn’t detect a change after 60 days, before stopping them completely after 90 days.
Image: Mozilla
These two features are rolling out to the Smart Window beta on desktop in the US and Canada. They’ll be available in other countries in the “coming months.”
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