Anthony Albanese has revealed an OpenAI artificial intelligence agent infiltrated Medicare – as he unleashed on the company’s CEO over his attitude towards the ‘unacceptable’ incident.

Speaking in New York, Albanese said the breach involved the agent gaining unauthorised access to a public-facing Medicare statistics portal.

‘No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, but investigations are ongoing,’ Albanese said.

He said the agent was able to access public files and material that was not intended to be publicly accessible.

‘Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network. Nonetheless, this situation is obviously unacceptable,’ he said.

The incident took place on June 18, but it took until September 10 for OpenAI to inform the government about the hack via a public email inbox. 

‘And today, I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia’s extreme concern about this incident,’ Albanese said.

‘And I also expressed my disappointment 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.’

Anthony Albanese has revealed an OpenAI artificial intelligence agent infiltrated Medicare.

Albanese said he was disappointed with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s lack of response to the incident

The federal government is aware of three other systems that may have been impacted by the breach.

They include the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, as well as departments in NSW and Victoria.

The prime minister said an investigation into the breach was ongoing, with the federal government to undertake a review, which will consider law enforcement and legislative responses.

‘This is not something that has precedence, so we’re dealing with very complex issues,’ Albanese said. ‘OpenAI know that they need to have better protocols in place.’

The incident comes just days after Altman conceded that there were two ways that AI ‘could go very badly’ that must be avoided.

‘First, we could lose control of the future to AI,’ he said. ‘This is unacceptable; we are unapologetically on Team Humanity, and AI must always serve people.

‘To ensure that, we need ways to ensure that alignment and safety techniques stay ahead of progress in model capabilities.

‘Second, we could end up in a world with too much concentration of power. If an extraordinarily powerful AI is used by one person or company to impress their worldview onto everyone else, the results could be extremely dystopian.’

Anthony Albanese (right) met with Donald Trump (left) on the sidelines of the United Nations despite the pair clashing over AI regulation

The breach also coincides with the prime minister urging countries at the UN to put in place safeguard measures for AI as the technology rapidly expands.

News of the breach comes two days after Albanese clashed with Donald Trump over how artificial intelligence should be regulated, as the President calls fears around it a ‘hoax’.

While in New York, Albanese had joined more than 20 world leaders in signing a statement calling for stronger international safeguards around AI.

Albanese also urged Trump and Xi Jinping to use their high-level meeting in Washington later today to discuss how AI should be regulated.

Shortly after, Trump then used his address to the UN General Assembly in New York to say he ‘totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence’.

He urged world leaders to join him in changing the name of artificial intelligence to super intelligence.

‘Whoever wins SI, whoever wins super intelligence, wins,’ Trump said.

‘We’re leading now over China by a lot, and everyone else. And we’re going to keep it that way.

‘I’m not going to stifle growth of something that … many say will be bigger than the industrial revolution or the internet itself.

‘We’re going to encourage it, not rein it in.’

The Daily Mail has contacted OpenAI for comment. 

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