Australia Senate Requests OpenAI, Anthropic CEOs Face AI Inquiry

The heads of artificial intelligence firms OpenAI and Anthropic PBC have been called on to appear before an Australian Senate inquiry to answer questions after the recent revelation of a hack of a government website.

Sam Altman and Dario Amodei were asked to attend the inquiry into data centers and AI, according to a statement from the committee chair Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

The committee’s next scheduled public hearing is on Thursday.

“There are serious questions for Sam Altman to answer about the OpenAI hack of Australian government websites,” Hanson-Young said in the statement.

“The committee wants to question the companies on the impact of their rapidly expanding footprint in Australia,” according to the statement. “AI companies need to earn their social licence. That starts with transparency and accountability,” the senator said in the statement.

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Since Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the hack last week, OpenAI has revealed that its AI models have accessed publicly available information from US government websites, including those of the Census Bureau and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

OpenAI said it did not have a comment on the Australian request at this time, while Anthropic did not respond to questions sent outside normal working hours.