OpenAI built an AI pipeline to find, exploit and patch Linux flaws

OpenAI has developed an autonomous AI pipeline that can identify software vulnerabilities, develop working exploits to validate their impact and generate patches for human review. In an October experiment targeting the Linux kernel, the pipeline created exploits for 948 distinct local privilege-escalation (LPE) vulnerabilities at a total API cost of $1.2 million, the company said in a November 4 research report, “A thousand fewer paths to root.” The system automates vulnerability discovery, dynamic validation, exploit development and patch generation. Human researchers still review the root-cause analysis, proof-of-concept exploits and proposed fixes before findings are reported to maintainers, OpenAI said. The research builds on OpenAI's Patch the Planet initiative.