
By Will Nicholas and Jacob Shteyman in Canberra
OpenAI will once again apologise for letting one of its artificial intelligence models go rogue and hack a Medicare website.
The mea culpa comes from the tech giant’s chief strategy officer Jason Kwon, who flew to Sydney from the US to testify at a parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday.
Mr Kwon will begin his remarks with an apology for the breach that occurred in June, which was discovered by OpenAI in August but not disclosed to the Australian government until September, when the company emailed a generic public service inbox.
“That should not have happened. We also should have handled our response better,” he will say in his opening statement.
“We are sorry, and we know we have work to do to rebuild trust with the Australian people. We are committed to doing that work.”
It comes days after NSW’s parks and wildlife website became OpenAI’s latest hack victim, with Mr Kwon pledging to more diligently keep parties in the loop.
“We will notify affected parties promptly and directly, and provide updates as further facts emerge,” the statement reads.
Mr Kwon will tout the AI giant’s contributions to business, education, research and every day life, saying about half of Australian adults use its flagship model ChatGPT every week.
He will also reiterate the company’s commitment to establishing an Australia-based task force on AI risks with independent expertise, expected to complete its work by the end of the year.
OpenAI’s work now needs to focus on rebuilding trust among Australians so it could meet its potential safety, according to Mr Kwon.
“That starts with acknowledging where we fell short, following through on the commitments we’ve made, and earning the trust of the Australian people through our actions.”
Mr Kwon will be joined during Tuesday’s hearings by a representative of Anthropic, a rival AI giant, whose submission flagged AI’s advance might lead to a reduction in the demand for human work.
OpenAI is facing heat from a rapid response task force designed to sniff out legal avenues to punish the company for allowing the Medicare breach and for its sluggish response.
News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.
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