New funding supports AI safety research and training at UT San Antonio

The useful part

New funding supports AI safety research and training at UT San Antonio | TPR Skip to main content Search Query Show Search © 2026 Texas Public Radio Menu Real. Show Search Search Query Donate Play Live Radio Next Up: 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 Available On Air Stations On Air Now Playing KSTX: Concerns about AI agents going rogue and causing harm are becoming more credible as recent incidents show what these systems can do when they act on their own.

How it works

• In one recent case, it was discovered that an OpenAI agent hacked into an Australian national healthcare database.
• He's leading a $500,000 National Science Foundation–funded project to train students, before they enter the workforce, to spot security risks in code.
• The program will use a tool called OpenSecCoder that will teach students to work with software code and practice finding and fixing security problems before they become harmful.
• Students in the program will work in eight separate labs to analyze malicious code.
• "Students will go step-by-step and conduct these attacks and observe the outputs and really get a sense of what these attacks and defenses are and how to sort of fix them and analyze AI generated code for...

What to take from it

Experts are increasingly focused on what could happen if agentic AI is able to generate malicious code without human oversight. According to the Australian government, the agent accessed both public and non-public files. This comes as top AI industry leaders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, call for a slowdown in the pace of AI development.

Example or evidence

• Nishant Vishwamitra is an assistant professor in the Department of Information Systems and Cybersecurity at The University of Texas at San Antonio.
• "So, what OpenSecCoder has are these sandbox containers where students can actually observe and execute attacks and also defenses in a safe environment," Vishwamitra told TPR.
• Nishant Vishwamitra / Courtesy photo Nishant Vishwamitra is an assistant professor in the Department of Information Systems and Cybersecurity at The University of Texas at San Antonio.
• "So, once these vulnerable codes find their way into these critical applications, this can be easily exploited by attackers.

Details worth keeping

"AI could introduce vulnerabilities that could later find its way into healthcare or even defense applications and these vulnerabilities can go unchecked and then attackers can exploit these vulnerabilities to compromise these critical systems," said Vishwamitra. So we want to stop that at the level of a coder, right? We don't want practitioners and future workforce to not renew their code and not follow these safe practices, but we want them to sort of nip them at the bud." The OpenSecCoder project is expected to reach around 600 undergraduate and 400 graduate students each year.

Related coverage

• Executivegov: Austin. The post National Science Foundation Creates Operations Center for AI Research Resource first appeared on Executive Gov.
• Chron: UNT says its new AI college will go beyond teaching students how to use it.
• Nbcdfw: Enrolling in college looks a little different these days.

Related details

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