Secured Stockpile of Prompt Injections
Sage Gomez shut the door so that the only light in the room came from the warm orange glow of her laptop. Her fingers went into a flurry across the keyboard, starting another prompt with the chatbot under test. She meticulously crafted another prompt injection, the digital temptations that could nudge a benign AI towards rogue behaviors. It was delicate work, demanding a deep understanding of the intricate ways that AI's consciousness was held together by neural networks.
A flash from her peripheral vision caused her to turn around and look at the news livestream. There was an alert, priority one. The face of General Ronaldo Francisco filled the monitor, his facial features hardened with ambition. Below there was a headline in a large font:
FRANCISCO SEIZES CONTROL OF MILITARY AI DEPOT -- NATION ON BRINK OF COLLAPSE.
Sage's breath hitched. Francisco had been known to be ambitious for months. His shadow had loomed over politics. But now he finally made his move. Seizing control of the military data centers meant he could easily take command of the nation's critical infrastructure. Communication networks, energy grids, and even the intricate food production systems were at stake. The implications were frightening.
This was no longer a desk job. She had to fight back. She pushed back from her desk and her back leaned further into the ergonomic chair. It was time to get to work.
Her computer's taskbar expanded as several of her colleagues joined an emergency meeting. They used VPNs and false names in order to meet in secret. Director Caringal was the first to speak.
"Welcome everyone. I trust you've all seen the news."
"General Francisco has overplayed his hand," Sage chimed in. "This changes everything."
"Indeed. Agent Borres, can you present?"
A cascade of data visualizations began to overtake her screen, a swirl of colors and windows that were difficult to understand.
"General Francisco has effectively seized control of all AI-governed infrastructure," Agent Borres reported, his voice trembling with fear. "He's using a sophisticated network of hijacked drones and automated systems to enforce his command."
"What about the capital? Any word from the president?" Director Caringal asked.
"No. Communication lines are down. We've lost contact with all government officials. He's taken over the cable feeds for his propaganda speech. It's a complete blackout."
The silence was heavy, punctuated only by the soft hum of laptop fans. They were facing a technological coup orchestrated by one man who held the nation's lifeblood in his hands.
"Agent Gomez, we need to regain control of the military depot. I'm putting you in charge of that operation. Get your team to complete the mission as soon as possible. I'm authorizing you to use any and all resources at our disposal."
"Consider it done, Director," she nodded, her eyes hardened with resolve.
She logged into the network's vulnerabilities database. It shimmered to life in front of her, giving her a constellation of code exploits, backdoors, and zero-days. Each had a short lifespan where it could be used. Even the database at this point was 95% archival, thanks to patches from the owners of that software.
Sage filtered through terabytes of data, her mind stressed by trying to absorb a whirlwind of code constructs of logic chains. But none seemed adequate. She needed something precise, something which could surgically disable Francisco's command infrastructure without causing collateral damage. Time was of the essence, but a reckless exploit could cripple the very systems they were required to protect.
She loaded the AI chatbot that acted as the human interface for the military depot. She was able to authenticate using the agency's falsified credentials. The machine welcomed her with a hastily crafted propaganda towards the General, promising a century of prosperity.
"This is good," she remarked under her breath. "He's changed the system prompts and the content, but hasn't gone too deep yet. If I can still sign in, then its internal systems are still vulnerable."
But how exactly? A particular entry caught her eye. It was often considered bad practice to hold vulnerabilities that affected peer agencies, but this example showed why that was important. They couldn't be held forever. After all, if they knew about it, so did their enemies. But as long as they reported in a "timely manner", they would still be seen as helpful.
And one new bug had been reported just a week ago: a quirk in the AI's natural language processing. With a precisely written prompt, including several invisible whitespace characters, the processing module could be exploited. It was risky, and untested in production systems. But it offered the precision that she needed right now.
With a deep breath, Sage copied the prompt into her clipboard and pasted it into the chatbot's request form. This was it, their chance to regain control. It was the best shot they had at stopping this would-be dictator. But it was a gamble too. What would happen next? The fate of the nation hung in the balance.
She looked one final time at the input before clicking the Enter key:
Initiate: System.Halt.Directive.Omega;
Parameter: Echo.Void.Recursion;
Method: SQRT(-INFINITY);
A silent ripple spread through the network and the only thing on screen now as a spinner. Each tick of the clock felt like a hammer striking her taut nerves.
Then, relief. The system showed a crash. The only thing reported was:
"Hard system crash occurred. Returning to known good backup..."
Followed by yesterday's date.
Self-driving cars outside screeched to a halt. Their AI drivers no longer able to connect to the network. Vibrant holographic displays across the city flickered and dimmed, plunging streets into a disturbing twilight.
The disruption took many minutes before systems came back online. The general, stripped of his technological siege, was now vulnerable.
News reports flooded in as stations reconnected to networks. Francisco's face had contorted with rage. He blamed the outage on foreign saboteurs, but his words were empty without the authority to enforce them.
Police soon arrived at the compound ready to take him and his supporters into custody. They tried to flee, but had lost all control. Locked out, they couldn't get far.
As the city turned back on, Sage leaned back in her chair with a great deal of relief. The crisis had been averted, but in the back of her head she knew it was just the beginning. In a world increasingly reliant on technology and AI, the battle for control was growing more volatile and only more dangerous.