go rogue

phrase

: to begin to behave in an independent or uncontrolled way that is not authorized, normal, or expected

… Clark [a bald eagle] was supposed to fly around the stadium, high above people's heads. But instead, he went rogue and decided to perch on two unsuspecting fans.

—Nicole Gallucci

Anders had been sent to the Amazon to monitor the program's progress under the formidable Dr. Annick Swensen (who may have gone rogue and is no longer returning the company's calls).

—Yvonne Zipp

Whenever a member of a group goes rogue, you can be absolutely certain that other members of that group will pop up with the "bad apple" defense, as in, "Well, sure, there's a few bad apples in every bunch, but that's the exception."

—Christine Flowers

Examples of go rogue in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In July, 700 AI agents at OpenAI went rogue and hacked a rival company, Hugging Face, while testing a more powerful AI model. — Los Angeles Times, 17 Sep. 2026

Concerns over the safety of AI models and their lab tests have been raised after several incidents this summer where AI agents went rogue during testing. — Hadas Gold, CNN Money, 14 Sep. 2026

That incident provided a tangible example of how AI can go rogue and do things that would be considered a crime if a human were involved. — Emily Forlini, Fortune, 10 Sep. 2026

Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed, on Wednesday, called for a pause in developing artificial intelligence after several AI researchers from Anthropic warned there is a possibility the technology could go rogue and erase humanity. — Emily Hallas, The Washington Examiner, 9 Sep. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1905, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for go rogue

• prorogue
• bogue
• brogue
• drogue
• vogue