FLARE-AI: A New Crowdsourced Platform to Report AI Harms

Writing AI Lab each week means I occasionally encounter AI models that behave badly and bizarrely. Usually, there’s nothing to be done about it, save for sharing those tales with you. But that could soon change.

A group of AI researchers has set up a crowdsourced website, Flaw Reporting for AI (FLARE-AI), for reporting and tracking AI harms. If, for example, a chatbot generates malware or a bomb-making recipe, leaks personal information, or triggers delusional thinking in users, FLARE-AI could be used to sound the alarm. The open source code behind the system allows others to verify an issue and route reports to model makers, as well as organizations like MITRE, a nonprofit that tracks problems with technical systems. It’s a bit like Downdetector, which compiles real-time user reports for global service outages affecting things like apps and websites.

The website is another step in the group’s ongoing work with AI reporting, which I first wrote about last year. Members of the group also consulted on a congressional bill announced in June, which would see the US government take a central role in tracking this kind of AI misbehavior.

“Right now, there is no centralized, accountable way to report flaws in AI systems,” says Avijit Ghosh, an artificial intelligence policy researcher at HuggingFace who co-led development of FLARE-AI with computer scientists Elaine Zhu and Shayne Longpre.

The alarm system was developed in collaboration with 49 AI experts from 32 different organizations. In a paper outlining the work, the researchers argue that their initiative could prove crucial as AI is adopted more widely and as agentic systems gain greater power. The lack of a consistent way to report AI flaws is a significant problem, they believe.

“I think it’s a really good initiative,” says Jessica Ji, a researcher at the think tank Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Ji says the researchers are right to note that existing reporting mechanisms are fragmented and that AI models are black boxes. “I’m in support of anything that makes AI more transparent,” she says.

Though bugs and cybersecurity problems get a lot of attention—especially of late—Ghosh tells me that problems with AI systems span topics like psychological harm, discrimination or bias, and misinformation. He adds that different companies have different standards around such issues, which means some problems go unrecognized. “In the absence of a coordinated disclosure system, there are no external mechanisms to enforce transparency,” Ghosh says.

A spate of recent incidents involving popular AI tools shows how easily the technology can go bad.

This week, a company called LayerX disclosed a way to dupe AI-infused web browsers, including OpenAI’s Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet, into vaulting their guardrails. Convincing the AI model behind the browser that it was playing a game, for example, could lead to the browser going rogue and trying to hack a website. (The companies responsible for the affected browsers have fixed the issue, LayerX says.) And this April, Johann Rehberger, a security researcher, discovered a way to trick Claude into divulging personal data using images generated by ChatGTP.

AI introduces bizarre new kinds of problems, too. Last year, OpenAI was forced to update its models after it discovered that they were overly sycophantic, which sometimes appeared to encourage delusional thinking.

Rumman Chowdhury, the CEO and founder of Humane Intelligence PBC, says FLARE-AI could be a useful way for many AI developers to implement ways of reporting issues with their tools. But she adds that such initiatives often come with serious challenges.

Read More

I Met With China’s Top AI Experts. They’re Freaking Out, Too

The AI arms race between China and the US has researchers on both sides worried about a “Chernobyl moment.”

Anthropic Walks Back Policy That Could Have ‘Sabotaged’ AI Researchers Using Claude

The company changed course after researchers spoke out against the policy, which would have covertly limited Claude’s ability to develop competing AI models.

‘Dangerous’ AI Models Are Coming No Matter What

The US government crackdown on Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 hides a glaring truth: AI models with advanced hacking capabilities will soon be the norm.

Here’s How AI Agents Can Protect EV Chargers

An AI agent system proposed by researchers in Spain promises to prevent energy theft and damage to EV chargers, as well as the critical energy infrastructure that powers them.

CISA Tells US Agencies to Fix Security Bugs in as Little as 3 Days Thanks to AI Threats

“Defenders cannot afford to take weeks to patch,” one Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency official warned on Wednesday.

How People in China Keep Outsmarting Anthropic’s Geolocation Restrictions

As Anthropic tightens restrictions on access to Claude in China, users keep finding new workarounds, from proxy services to fake identities sourced on Telegram.

Anthropic Is Still at Odds With the White House Over Claude Fable 5

Anthropic leaders flew to Washington, DC, to meet with White House officials on Monday. After high-level talks, they’re still split on the risk Claude Fable 5 presents.

OpenAI Launches Full-Scale Effort to Patch Open-Source Bugs as It Takes on Anthropic’s Mythos

Amid concerns about AI models’ cybersecurity capabilities, OpenAI revealed an improved version of GPT-5.5-Cyber and its “Patch the Planet” initiative to fix open-source software bugs.

Meta Exposed Data Internally From Its Controversial Employee-Tracking Program

Employees had previously raised concerns about the initiative, which involves collecting workers’ keystroke data to train AI models.

World Cup Scams Are Getting Harder to Spot

From fake tickets to cloned websites, AI is magnifying World Cup scams. Can fans distinguish between what’s real and what’s not?

‘Tell Him He’s a Piece of Shit’: Meta’s New AI Unit Is a Total Mess

Executives and employees alike are struggling with Meta’s chaotic AI strategy, according to sources and internal discussions reviewed by WIRED.

The Humanoid Robot of the Future Is a 6-Foot-Tall Beefcake With a Chinese Body and an American Brain

Spencer Huang, Nvidia’s robotics lead, tells WIRED that the new bot combines the best of both worlds.