Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic have been asked to appear before an Australian Senate inquiry into the recent hack of Australian Medicare portal, AI data centres and answer questions about the impact of their companies’ expanding operations in Australia.
The development comes days after the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese disclosed that an OpenAI AI agent had breached a government Medicare website in June this year.
According to the senator of Australia Green party, Sarah Hanson-Young, both the CEOs have been sent written requests to appear for the inquiry, which is to hold public hearings in the capital Canberra on October 1.
“There are serious questions for Sam Altman to answer about the OpenAI hack of Australian government websites. This can’t all be done behind closed doors, the public has a right to know what went on here,” the senator said.
“As they warn the world about the risks posed by AI, they are also going at hyper speed to put more data centres in Australia. It just doesn’t stack up. It’s time for some real transparency around these deals. If they truly believe their own warnings they must front up, face the Senate’s questions and have an honest conversation about what effective, lasting regulation of this industry should look like,” she further stressed.
A recent report by Reuters has claimed that both OpenAI and Anthropic are not inclined on sending their CEOs to Australia to appear in the senate.
The Australian prime minister mentioned on Thursday ( September 24) that OpenAI agent breached the Australian Medicare statistics reporting service portal, which is administered under Services Australia. However, the prime minister claimed that the affected portal did not contain any sensitive Medicare information relating to data and statistics.
PM Albanese expressed his disappointment that Sam Altman led AI company did not inform the officials of the hack and 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.
He also further disclosed that his government is currently exploring options whether to pursue a criminal case against the AI company.
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