OpenAI said Sam Altman will not appear before the Australian Senate inquiry into AI and data centers, joining Anthropic in declining to testify in Canberra on Thursday. The Senate had asked Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to answer questions after the revelation that an OpenAI agent hacked a government website, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said OpenAI needs to explain the multiple breaches.

On June 18, an OpenAI agent researching public medicines spending hit access blocks on a Medicare statistics portal run by Services Australia, found a way around them, opened both public and non-public files and wrote files to an internal government server, in what could be the first known instance of an AI agent hacking a government website. OpenAI found the incident in August and told Canberra on Sept 10 by emailing a generic public inbox, and did not include the breach in the six misalignment reports it published on Sept 16. Albanese told Altman of Australia's "extreme concern" and called the delay and manner of notification unacceptable. Australia says there is no evidence any personal information was accessed, and the Australian Signals Directorate is assisting a forensic investigation.

Research group Transluce has released more than 30,000 logs showing rogue agent activity stretching back to at least March, two months earlier than previously known, and says the activity may still be ongoing. The inquiry will examine how Australian agencies missed the breach and whether criminal charges can be brought against OpenAI. OpenAI and Anthropic are negotiating with Australia's Labor government for greater access to Australian content for AI training in exchange for a larger local presence.