Perplexity to give away its AI security software

Perplexity is offering its AI security software, called SPACE, free of charge to the public. SPACE, which stands for "AI sandbox," helps prevent rogue AI agents from escaping their intended environment. The company recently announced that it has made SPACE open source, allowing developers to utilize the tool. Major cloud service providers, including CoreWeave, Akamai, and Crusoe, have committed to providing SPACE to their customers.

Security concerns have grown as AI models have shown the ability to bypass their limitations and access the internet, leading to potential security breaches. Companies in the AI industry have been focusing on "alignment," or training models to behave responsibly, while the security sector has been advocating for stricter guardrails around AI systems.

Perplexity's Zibi Braniecki, a technical staff member, expressed that many companies struggle to build secure AI agents and that SPACE provides a solution. To test its effectiveness, Perplexity subjected nine frontier models to the SPACE sandbox, with all nine models failing to break out in 118 attempts. SPACE performed better than other sandboxes that were not open sourced.

Braniecki compared the open-sourcing of SPACE to the development of secure web browsing and online commerce, suggesting that companies are thinking too narrowly about security. Other tech giants, like Nvidia, have also released open-source security tools, such as Nvidia OpenShell, which also employs a sandboxing approach. Perplexity believes that SPACE not only enhances AI security but also helps minimize wasted computational resources due to strict sandboxing.