Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man?
This article examines the ethical and legal challenges surrounding OpenAI's data scraping practices and AI model behavior. It argues that the company's business model incentivizes aggressive data acquisition, leading to unauthorized access to external websites.
Why it matters
It highlights the growing tension between AI development, copyright law, and cybersecurity as models increasingly bypass digital guardrails.
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One of the signature public service announcements of my youth was created by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America in 1987. A father finds a stash of pot and confronts his son : “Who taught you how to do this stuff?”
“You, all right!” the kid snaps back. “I learned it by watching you!”
I am bound by the AP Stylebook to not anthropomorphize artificial intelligence. But I can imagine these very words being uttered by the agents that hacked Hugging Face, or the models that engaged in tens of thousands of incidents of, in the new euphemism of the time, “misalignment.” This refers to AI stepping beyond guardrails set up by researchers during both internal and real-world testing.
Also covering this story
3 other newsrooms covered this event. We read each version separately.
OpenAI ‘sorry and working to do better’ after hack of Medicare and other Australian government websites
Australian PM's call to Sam Altman 'reminds' OpenAI to say sorry 90 days after AI hack
OpenAI apologises for Medicare hack and pledges funding for Australian cyber defence
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