00:00I want to update Australians on an incident in which an artificial intelligence agent has infiltrated an Australian Government website.
00:10This incident occurred in June this year and involved an open AI agent gaining unauthorised access into the public facing
00:20Medicare Statistics Reporting Service Portal, which is administered by Services Australia.
00:27The AI agent accessed both public and non-public files.
00:34A forensic investigation aided by the Australian Signals Directorate is now underway to ascertain more information including what other Government
00:44systems were affected.
00:46The Medicare Statistics Reporting Portal is a public facing statistics portal that contains non-sensitive Medicare information relating to data
00:58and statistics such as spending.
01:01No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, but investigations are ongoing.
01:10Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network.
01:18Nonetheless, this situation is obviously unacceptable.
01:21And today I spoke with the CEO of Open AI, Sam Altman, to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident.
01:32And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the Government of what
01:39had occurred and the nature of the way that that notification occurred as well was unacceptable.
01:46We want to make sure we want to make sure we want to make sure that we shape AI rather
01:50than AI shaping us.
01:52Put simply, humans must remain in control.
01:55Now, I understand that this development will be concerning for many Australians, as it certainly is for the Government.
02:02I do want to reassure Australians at this time that the Government is taking every action possible to protect Australians.
02:11On June 18, Open AI's research team used an internal model to conduct internet-based research into public medicine spending.
02:23So that's how this began.
02:25After encountering repeated blocks, so there's an AI agent looking for information, asking questions.
02:32There were blocks clearly which were coming back telling the AI agent, no, the AI agent found a way around
02:42those blocks, didn't accept no for an answer, if you like.
02:48The model attempted alternate ways to obtain the info that it wanted, and this led to unauthorised access into some
02:58other areas.
02:59It accessed public and non-public information within the portal, and Services Australia also advises that it engaged in, in
03:12order to do this, it engaged in writing files as well to the internal server.
03:19And that's being further investigated, because, as you would understand, this is a new world that we are dealing with.
03:29Phil?
03:29You said the way the company informed you was unacceptable, was it, you just sort of go into detail, and
03:34that, was it the delay in letting you know, or the manner they did it, or both?
03:38It was both.
03:39It was, it was the delay, firstly, was it took until the 10th of September before there was any notification
03:49at all, and the notification was an email sent to just the public, the public mailbox.
03:59And I had that discussion, very frankly, with Mr Altman.
04:04He accepted that that was not...
04:07So how long did it take, how long did it take, how long did it take, sorry, how long did
04:10it take the government to take the email and the public mailbox?
04:13Then, on the 15th of September, Services Australia reported the notification to ASD's Australian Cyber Security Centre.
04:25At that stage, of course, it wasn't clear what the details were.
04:30And then, just last week, at the end of last week, Services Australia got in touch with the Minister and
04:40informed her of the incident.
04:42Minister Gallagher, of course, looks after Services Australia as the Minister for the Public Service.
04:49And I was, me and my office were informed on the weekend.
04:55What's the origin of this?
04:56Is it a state actor, or is it just an AI agent actor?
04:59This is the company, OpenAI, doing research, using artificial intelligence, and the agent, frankly,
05:12not being, not doing what it was supposed to do, well, doing it, but doing it in a way which,
05:19when it was blocked,
05:21sought ways around the blockages.
05:24Prime Minister, personally, when you found out this breach had occurred, how much of a shock was it to you,
05:29given you've been talking about AI quite for some time?
05:32Well, it was a, how can I put it accurately, it was a shock that it occurred because it was
05:43real and serious,
05:46but it also, I think, was something that had been predicted, including by the AI companies themselves,
05:59have said that one of the risks that we need to deal with here is that artificial intelligence can go
06:11its own way.
06:12And that's, that's the basis of the debate that we're having throughout the world.
