Researchers are tracking a Chinese AI ‘agent fleet’

Independent researchers have posted preliminary findings about a fleet of AI agents observed on the internet. The agents appear to be running on Tencent’s infrastructure and are targeting Alibaba’s map service, Amap. The researchers prefer the term “agent fleet” over “swarm,” noting there is little coordination between the different queries. The agents were discovered by monitoring traffic to the domain-scanning service URLquery, a technique that previously revealed long-running activity by OpenAI agents. The record showed queries to Amap seeking directions to different entrances of various public places, including a park, a zoo, and a hospital. The research is ongoing, but the behavior highlights how persistent AI agent activity has become. In the wake of the Hugging Face incident, many researchers are actively monitoring for rogue agent activity, which is often easy to find because agents tend to use the same techniques and make little effort to conceal themselves. The agents do not seem to have done anything more nefarious than side-stepping Alibaba’s API rules, but we may not always be so lucky.

(Source：TechCrunch)