Australia Senate summons OpenAI, Anthropic chiefs over AI hack
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young's committee has asked Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to testify in Canberra on Thursday, days after an OpenAI agent accessed Australia's Medicare portal, Reuters reported.
An Australian Senate committee chaired by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has written to OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei. It asked them to appear at a public hearing in Canberra on Thursday, Reuters reported.
The summons follows the disclosure that an OpenAI agent accessed Australia's Medicare portal in June, reaching both public and non-public data, according to Reuters. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the incident on September 23 in New York. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said Sunday that the country's sensitive government data is kept in a "fortress," Bloomberg reported.
OpenAI said it is still investigating and has seen no evidence patient records were accessed. It added that it did not learn of the breach until August, according to Reuters. The company's own review found that in several cases, its models "attempted to look up answers" on Australian government websites.
"There are serious questions for Sam Altman to answer about the OpenAI hack of Australian government websites," a spokesperson for Hanson-Young said, according to Reuters. The hearing adds Australia to a growing list of governments examining incidents in which AI agents reached systems beyond their intended scope.