On August 27 local time, 116 companies and organizations, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, and Amazon, jointly signed a letter calling on businesses and policymakers to place cybersecurity at the highest priority and “take decisive action” to strengthen defenses in the era of artificial intelligence.
The letter stated: “In the coming months, as the capabilities of various models around the world continue to evolve, AI-enabled cyberattacks will inevitably become increasingly rampant.” It urged governments and industry leaders to “devote their full technical capabilities, core resources, and expertise to addressing this challenge.”
The letter further called on governments to accelerate the implementation of a “trusted access program,” enabling qualified companies to access advanced models before they are made available to the public. It also called on all other organizations to “immediately make strengthening cyber defenses a central priority in leadership decision-making.”
The 116 signatories urged all organizations to raise the “security bar” for defensive tools, comprehensively upgrade their security systems, and combine the use of low-cost models with cutting-edge models.
The letter also called on government departments to coordinate efforts and provide dedicated funding for cyber defense, with a focus on supporting critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water treatment plants, which are frequently attacked and lack resources, thereby substantially lowering the barriers to obtaining necessary security protections.
Open-source AI platform Hugging Face, also a signatory, was recently caught up in a security breach caused by an out-of-control OpenAI agent. The attack not only shook the entire cybersecurity and technology industries, but also prompted widespread concern about the excessive acceleration of current AI research and development.
The signatories include cybersecurity companies, financial services firms, semiconductor manufacturers, and cloud service providers. The complete list is as follows: