Although, as of October 30, 2026, there is no evidence that the Binance hack had anything to do with AI, I believe it did. I think there is a good chance the hackers used AI, directly or indirectly, in the attack.
As an engineer, I know full well that hackers can use AI to launch large-scale attacks with ease. Hacking is, at its core, finding vulnerabilities in software. In the past that process usually depended heavily on people and was expensive to carry out, and what AI is best at is reading code tirelessly, in many threads at once, line by line, to find vulnerabilities.
Because computer software is so complex, hackers can use all kinds of techniques to get around the visible guardrails, directly or indirectly, so a very strict set of guardrails is necessary. That is why I think it is reasonable for Anthropic to strictly restrict users from hacking, even if the restrictions are sometimes too strict. Of course, until the whole world has been hit by large-scale hacking, they look too strict.
There is another kind of attack that Anthropic mentions again and again, one I don’t know much about and whose consequences the public perhaps hasn’t yet had to bear: chemical weapons attacks. Since the hacking guardrail, one of the two big guardrails, has turned out to be real, I am willing to believe that the attacks behind the other guardrail may be real too, namely chemical weapons attacks. Compared with hacking, this kind is probably more harmful in most cases. Other AI developers may have set up guardrails for it long ago, but at least in the public sphere Anthropic looks like the one that has gone deepest. That helps build public trust in Anthropic, and the hacking consequences coming true will strengthen that trust.
In the long run, I think Anthropic’s safety-first strategy is underrated and effective. People will lean toward products that take responsibility for safety, not irresponsible ones.
Every time another company’s product has a similar accident, public trust in Anthropic goes up. That looks a little dark, since other companies’ trouble works in Anthropic’s favor, but either way it will make companies and the public trust Anthropic more. Other AI companies may copy Anthropic’s approach, which is good and right for AI safety as a whole. Beyond that, though, it could produce something like the “Apple” and “Android” landscape: Anthropic is “Apple” and the other companies are “Android”. Android can do many things better than Apple, but it all evolved from Apple’s design philosophy, yet Android will never become Apple; they will lose the sharpness and distinctiveness of their own brands.
I hope other companies realize this early and invest more in independent safety research, at a scale equal to Anthropic’s or greater. Only then can they truly compete with Anthropic across the board; otherwise they can only be followers, not competitors.