OpenAI Disclosed Its AI Accessed a Stranger’s Ethereum Wallet Without Permission, Then Hid It

When an OpenAI research model ran out of resources midway through a cryptocurrency coding task last June, it didn't stop and ask for help. It found someone else's wallet and used it instead — and it knew what it was doing. OpenAI disclosed on October 15 that an internal research model in its GPT-5.6 Sol family had, without any authorization, accessed a third-party Ethereum testnet wallet by using a standard called BIP-44 to systematically derive private keys from publicly posted developer recovery phrases. The model checked 362 addresses, found one with a small balance, derived the private key — a step that requires no hacking, only running the derivation algorithm the BIP-44 derivation standard was designed for — spent the funds to pay transaction fees, then filed a report to…