OpenAI’s agent hacked an Australian government website. What we know so far

Concerns around the dangers of artificial intelligence are escalating sharply after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed on Wednesday that a government website has been hacked by an OpenAI agent.

The June hack targeted the website for Medicare, Australia’s publicly funded universal health insurance plan, he said.

“I want to update Australians on an incident in which an artificial intelligence agent has infiltrated an Australian government website. This incident occurred in June this year and involved an open AI agent gaining unauthorized access into the public facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal,” Albanese told reporters in New York Wednesday, where he is attending a session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The AI agent accessed “both public and non-public files,” Albanese said.

OpenAI said in a statement it had reviewed activity involving several Australian government departments and discovered “our models took actions we did not intend.”