OpenAI agent 'infiltrated' Australian government website, PM says

An artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI "infiltrated" an Australian government website in June, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said.

The agent hacked a statistics portal containing "non-sensitive" data from Australia's universal healthcare scheme Medicare, Albanese said in New York on Wednesday, local time.

He had a "very frank discussion" with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for taking "too long" to tell them about the breach, believed to be one of the world's first publicly reported AI-led hacks of a government website.

OpenAI said it only became aware of the incident in August "during an ongoing review" of "misaligned model activity", and told Australian officials on 10 September.

While the review is ongoing, OpenAI said in a statement that it is not believed any patient records were accessed.

Albanese said the breach occurred in June this year, but OpenAI only informed Services Australia - the national hub directing users across government services - via email on 10 September.

The agency contacted the relevant minister who passed on the information to the prime minister at the weekend.

Albanese said he had also expressed "Australia's extreme concern about this incident" when he spoke to Altman and there will "obviously be legal consequences on it".

Altman, the prime minister said, acknowledged there were "issues with protocols" at OpenAI.

Albanese said the agent accessed both public and non-public files and a "forensic investigation" is under way to find out if other government systems were affected.

The investigation will be led by the Australian Signals Directorate, the country's cybersecurity agency.

The public-facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal which was hacked is administered by Services Australia .

A spokesperson for OpenAI said in a statement: "We identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services as our models attempted to look up answers, and available statistics for questions about Australia during an internal evaluation.

"In the course of that, our models took actions we did not intend," the statement continued.