OpenAI agent 'infiltrated' Australian government website, PM says

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock By Harry Sekulich , Reporting from Sydney and Jacob Phillips Published 21 minutes ago An artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI "infiltrated" an Australian government website in June, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said.

The agent gained unauthorised accessed to a statistics portal containing "non-sensitive Medicare information", Albanese told a news conference at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Medicare refers to Australia's universal healthcare scheme. The breach is among the first publicly reported AI-led hacks of a government website in the world.

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

While the review is ongoing, a spokesperson for the AI firm said that it is not believed that any patient records were accessed.