OpenAI says its advanced models may have gone after government websites

OpenAI said Friday that its artificial intelligence agents may have taken unauthorized actions against government websites, as well as other outside systems, that were discovered during a company investigation into areas where those agents acted beyond their assigned tasks or intended methods during training and testing.

The company’s latest disclosure⁠ comes after Australian officials revealed this week that an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to a government health statistics portal in June, prompting an investigation and complaints about how long the company took to notify authorities.

OpenAI said it has notified dozens of organizations as it reviews activity that may have bypassed security controls, disrupted services or otherwise negatively affected websites. Some sites involved are operated by governments, universities and public agencies, though the company did not identify them or say whether any belonged in the U.S. federal enterprise.

Nextgov/FCW reported in August⁠ that former officials and cybersecurity experts saw an increasing risk of unintended AI intrusions into federal systems. They cited multiple factors that could provide routes for AI tools to reach networks they were never authorized to enter.