The trick: Human In The Loop
The AI that 'autonomously invented' a new bank-hacking technique needed its human to confirm the technique was real.
James Kettle built a genuinely impressive research machine. Then he wrote, in plain English, that its best discovery was not autonomous. The headline dropped that sentence.
an autonomous AI invented novel attack categories no researcher had named and hacked live banks and government systems.
Before you read on. Your call?
TRUE, BUT
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the primary source is James Kettle's own PortSwigger writeup, and it says the opposite of the headline. Of the flagship discovery, Shared-Parser Confusion, Kettle writes 'This discovery was not fully autonomous, the HTTP Terminator proposed it, and I validated it.' Every one of the roughly 700 vulnerable targets sat inside an authorized bug-bounty or vulnerability disclosure scope. Impressive AI-assisted research, mislabeled as an autonomous attack.
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The trick has a name
We call it Human In The Loop: autonomy claimed, humans did the work. You'll see it again. Learn to spot it →
Receipts
- Supports techtimes.com:
Autonomous AI Invents Novel Attacks, Hits Banks and Government
- Refutes portswigger.net:
This discovery was not fully autonomous - the HTTP Terminator proposed it, and I validated it. Neither of us would have discovered it alone.
- Context thehackernews.com:
Kettle said HTTP Terminator tested 30,000 websites where scanning was authorized through bug bounty or vulnerability disclosure programs and found roughly 700 vulnerable targets before deeper validation
Open the Receipts Pack → What each source proves, every figure traced, and what would change our verdict.