Anthony Albanese said the OpenAI agent had gained unauthorised access into the public-facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/EPAView image in fullscreenAnthony Albanese said the OpenAI agent had gained unauthorised access into the public-facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/EPAAnthony Albanese says OpenAI agent hacked Medicare and he expressed ‘extreme concern’ to Sam Altman Prime minister says he expressed ‘disappointment’ to chief executive it had taken the company ‘way too long’ to inform his government about the breach
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Anthony Albanese says an artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI hacked Medicare in June.
The prime minister made the comments at the UN summit in New York, saying it appeared no personal information had been accessed – though investigations were ongoing.
“Nonetheless, this situation is obviously unacceptable,” Albanese said.
“Today, I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia’s extreme concern about this incident.
“And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred.”
Albanese said the OpenAI agent had gained unauthorised access into the public-facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal, which is administered by Services Australia.
The portal contains non-sensitive Medicare information relating to data and statistics, such as spending.
Albanese said the agent had accessed “public and non-public files”
“A forensic investigation, aided by the Australian Signals Directorate, is now under way to ascertain more information, including what other government systems were affected,” Albanese said.
He said there appeared to be no broader compromise to the Services Australia network.
“Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network.”
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said the government learned of the June breach “a couple of weeks ago” and ministers were informed last week.
Marles that the agent was non-human and called the breach a “very serious incident”.
“What we have seen is unauthorised access in to an Australian government website and that is completely unacceptable and we have made that clear to OpenAI.”
Marles said the government had established a taskforce that will be led by the the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s department and working with the Australian Signals Directorate and the AI Safety Institute.
The agencies will “examine everything that’s occurred here and to understand how – what the AI agent did and how this incursion occurred and what the impact of it has been,” he said.
“We are working cooperatively with OpenAI in relation to that, but fundamentally, this is a very unacceptable situation.”
It comes just days after Albanese joined more than 20 other leaders in urging greater international safeguards to protect people from the risks of AI.
Chief executives of OpenAI and Anthropic are set to address the UN on AI safety today.
