Australia summons OpenAI and Anthropic CEOs to appear at AI inquiry

Call to face Senate inquiry follows security breach of Australia’s Medicare portal by rogue OpenAI bot in June.

Australia has called for the CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic to appear before a Senate inquiry into artificial intelligence, just days after revelations that a rogue OpenAI bot had ⁠hacked the country’s health-system database.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei have been sent written requests to appear at the inquiry, which is to hold public hearings in the capital, Canberra, on Thursday, a spokesperson for Senator Sarah ‌Hanson-Young of the Australian Greens party said.

The inquiry is examining the potential impacts of AI and data centres on safety, data transparency, Australian communities, industries, water and energy. It is one of several state and federal inquiries into AI.

“There are serious questions for Sam Altman to answer about the OpenAI hack of Australian government websites,” Hanson-Young’s spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday.

The statement said Altman and Amodei “must front up, face the Senate’s questions and have an honest conversation about what effective, lasting regulation of this industry should look like”.

OpenAI and Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours.

The Medicare incursion, condemned by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, is one of the highest-profile incidents of AI agents accessing external systems outside the United States.

Addressing reporters in New York on Wednesday, Albanese said the agent, developed by OpenAI, accessed public and nonpublic data on the government’s Medicare portal in June.

OpenAI responded after the news conference, stating that while it was still investigating, there was no evidence patient records were accessed and that it learned of the breach in August only.

The company’s review had identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services as its “models attempted to look up answers”, it said.

Australia’s Labor government is tightening tech regulations with new online safety laws, age bans and proposed digital duty of care frameworks.