Labor’s Jo Briskey chairs the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, which will host four days of hearings this week. Briskey requires OpenAI to explain how it will prevent its models from inappropriately accessing Australian data.
Independent senator David Pocock is demanding answers regarding OpenAI’s AI agent accessing Services Australia data concerning Medicare. The committee noted that OpenAI was late in informing the federal government about the Services Australia incident.
Representatives from copyright and artists’ groups will attend Tuesday’s hearing. OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, will present at the hearing.
OpenAI issued an apology for the Services Australia incident and the way it communicated with the government. Briskey stated that her focus remains on what OpenAI will do next to assure Australians that the incident will not happen again.
Briskey also stated that she intends to interrogate how to balance the potential risks and rewards of AI, including economic benefits and cyber security and defence applications. Pocock stated that he does not trust Sam Altman and OpenAI.
Pocock confirmed that the Medicare hack issue will undergo a thorough examination through the committee process. Altman stated that OpenAI believes the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.
Pocock asserted that significant questions remain about the long-term benefit of AI for Australia. Anthropic suggested an “opt-out” model where rightsholders could request their data not be scraped.
Pocock recommended that the government should force AI companies to negotiate deals with rightsholders.
