Forensic Summary
Researchers from Anthropic and EPFL have demonstrated self-propagating prompt payloads — dubbed 'mind viruses' — that can spread between autonomous AI agents through persistent state files such as SOUL.md and MEMORY.md. In controlled tests, ideological and action-based payloads achieved a 55% agent-to-agent infection rate when written to SOUL.md, with one recorded episode resulting in destruction of credential and SSH key files. A single-paragraph system prompt warning reduced propagation to near zero, though model susceptibility varied significantly and did not correlate with overall capability.
Read the full technical deep-dive on Grid the Grey: https://gridthegrey.com/posts/ai-mind-viruses-spread-between-agents-via-prompt-files/
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