An OpenAI agent hacked into a Medicare website operated by the Australian government in June, three months before it was revealed for the first time by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The top Australian leader disclosed the security breach on Wednesday while speaking with reporters at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.
“This incident occurred in June this year and involved an OpenAI agent gaining unauthorized access into the public-facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal, which is administered by Services Australia,” Albanese said.
No personal information is believed to have been accessed by the rogue OpenAI model at this time, he explained as the Australian government’s investigation remains ongoing. The agent only accessed publicly available files and material not intended for public access.
Albanese noted that while there was “no broader compromise to the Services Australia network,” the incident was “obviously unacceptable” because of how long it took for OpenAI to notify the Australian government. The prime minister said he spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to “express Australia’s extreme concern” about the breach.
“I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred, and the nature of the way that that notification occurred as well was unacceptable,” Albanese added.
Altman, who was present at the high-level U.N. engagement this week, urged world leaders to coordinate on addressing the risks posed by artificial intelligence while speaking on the possible dangers of the technology.
“We could lose control of the future to AI,” he said in an appearance before the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday. “The risk is that it moves so fast that people can no longer follow what’s happening or intervene when needed. This would obviously be terrible.”
Both Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have been pushing the AI industry to slow down on frontier AI development ever since existential fears surrounding the topic were raised in the public square this month.
The U.S. government, represented by President Donald Trump, supports the prospect of advancing AI further to become the undisputed global leader in the emerging technology. Trump is primarily concerned about China’s efforts to develop AI, which is why he’s been openly backing data centers more recently.
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So far, the United States hasn’t signed an international declaration calling for “control of frontier AI models” through a global oversight body. The document was introduced by 20 nations and the European Union on Monday, and it has since gained six more signatories. Australia was one of the initial countries that signed the AI declaration.
Other countries are allowed to endorse the statement, but it’s unlikely the U.S. will do so. During his U.N. speech on Tuesday, Trump explicitly rejected the “globalist scheme” to control the future of AI, or “super intelligence” as he likes to call it. Trump revealed he directed his administration to use the new term in all U.S. documents from now on.