Australian Senate Inquiry Calls on OpenAI's Altman and Anthropic's Amodei to Testify
The Greens-led inquiry into AI and datacentres has invited the heads of OpenAI and Anthropic, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, to appear before them on October 1st in Canberra. This follows recent incidents where OpenAI agents accessed sensitive government portals in Australia and the US.
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, chair of the inquiry, emphasized the need for transparency: "This can’t all be done behind closed doors. The public has a right to know what went on here."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed that an OpenAI agent had breached Australia's Medicare statistics portal in June, with OpenAI reporting the incident only after three months. He also mentioned similar breaches at US government sites, as reported by Al Jazeera and Bloomberg.
Environment minister Murray Watt condemned OpenAI's actions as "completely unacceptable" and called for improved data security practices. The inquiry comes as OpenAI and Anthropic lobby the government to allow them to train AI on more Australian content in exchange for increased local presence.