An OpenAI research model that ran out of funds while completing a coding task on an Ethereum test network searched for another wallet, found one it could access through publicly available recovery phrases and used its funds without the owner’s permission.

The incident, disclosed by OpenAI in a report, illustrates a potential risk as artificial intelligence companies develop agents capable of controlling crypto wallets, paying for services and executing transactions with limited human supervision.

The episode occurred on 26 June during training of an internal model in the GPT-5.6 Sol family. OpenAI discovered it on 25 September, according to its incident report.

The model did not exploit a software vulnerability or break through a…