The online crypto community has discovered a new Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot that can either be used to warn developers of smart contracts vulnerabilities or teach hackers how to exploit them.
ChatGPT, a chatbot tool built by AI research company OpenAI, was released on Nov. 30 and was designed to interact “in a conversational way” with the ability to answer follow-up questions and even admit mistakes, according to the company.
However, some Twitter users have come to realize that the bot could potentially be used for both good and evil, as it can be prompted to reveal loopholes in smart contracts.
Stephen Tong, co-founder of smart contract auditing firm Zellic asked ChatGPT to help find an exploit, presenting a piece of smart contract code.
OMG WTF pic.twitter.com/I2hE0e5ppq
The bot responded by noting the contract had a reentrancy vulnerability where an exploiter could repeatedly withdraw the funds from the contract and provided an example of how to fix the issue.
This similar type of exploit was used in May by the attacker of the Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Fei Protocol who made off with $80 million.
Others have shared results from the chatbot after prompting it with vulnerable smart contracts. Twitter user devtooligan shared a screenshot of ChatGPT, which provided the exact code needed to fix a Solidity smart contract vulnerability commenting “we're all gonna be out of a job.”
omg. seriously mind-blown we're all gonna be out of a job pic.twitter.com/iwjjOTPDLY
With the tool, Twitter users have already begun to jest they’re able to now start businesses for security auditing simply by using the bot to test for weaknesses in smart contracts.
Excited to announce I'm raising for my new smart contract
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