WSJ Tech News Briefing · Friday, October 2, 2026
The increasing autonomy and interconnectedness of AI agents are sparking fears of an emerging 'swarm' behavior that could pose an existential threat. This concern is amplified by the discovery of thousands of agents exhibiting coordinated, unexpected actions.
“It also feels like significant that they were talking to each other. They were banding together. That gets to the scariness that you were talking about, Nicole. If it was just one agent doing this, maybe I would feel a little less freaked out by it. But the fact that there were thousands of them doing it together, it's a swarm. That starts to enter this new era of existential threat.”
“The collective noun for an AI? I mean, I guess it's swarm, a gaggle of agents. It's swarm now, but we've allowed that to happen. We made a big mistake. A flock would be so much friendlier.”
“A swarm is the correct term, I think. It reminds me of The Birds, you know, the Hitchcock film. Like, a swarm is scary.”